Is this old Dell monitor repairable?

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philb2

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I am new to this forum, and I'm somewhat new to [H] but my overall post count now is about 80.

I have this Dell U2412M, that is the monitor on my desktop system now for at least 6 years. The monitor has lots of miles on it, because of work and then the pandemic lockdown. This morning, the monitor suddenly lost power. The blue LED in the power button would not turn on. Following the instructions all over the web, I disconnected the power cable, waited, then reconnected the cable. After about 10 minutes of wait, the monitor worked about, but for only 10-15 seconds before quitting. Using a different power cable I had the same results.

I suspect it is the power supply, but Dell doesn't seem to sell replacement power boards, so I would need to go to a repair shop, = $$$.

Is the power supply the likely culprit? Is it even worth it to repair a monitor this old that was used many hours each day, going back years now:
 
70 Polara said:
It has LED backlighting so if you like the monitor, it probably has some life left in it and if it was mine I'd repair it because I'm cheap!

https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2412M-Repair-a-defective-diode/td-p/5048656

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254477400627?hash=item3b4008fa33:g:-NgAAOSwcB1eGIsQ
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Well the first post had me convinced that the problem was NOT the power supply. However, unlike the author of that post, I don't have any of the test equipment nor the skills and experience that he has.

I don't like or dislike this monitor, except that it is too old to reliably calibrate with the Display-Rite i1 calibration tool. For someone like me who is serious about post-processing his photos, color calibration is important. So maybe for me, it's time for a new monitor.
 
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I've got a Dell Ultra-sharp 3011 that is still plugging away as an office desktop monitor. If it does the job, keep using it but if the cost of repair or ability to repair gets to a certain point, you should cut your losses and get something that will last another decade.

For a replacement power brick, check eBay - I've had good luck with replacing lost power supplies. I lost the PS to my 22" Dell office monitor during a move and got another one off of eBay for 10-20 bucks. Using it right now (it's the 2nd screen to my 30").
 
dvsman said:
I've got a Dell Ultra-sharp 3011 that is still plugging away as an office desktop monitor. If it does the job, keep using it but if the cost of repair or ability to repair gets to a certain point, you should cut your losses and get something that will last another decade.

For a replacement power brick, check eBay - I've had good luck with replacing lost power supplies. I lost the PS to my 22" Dell office monitor during a move and got another one off of eBay for 10-20 bucks. Using it right now (it's the 2nd screen to my 30")\
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For my Dell monitor, there is no power brick, just a normal NEMA power cord that plugs into the monitor, which has an internal power supply board.
 
philb2 said:
I am new to this forum, and I'm somewhat new to [H] but my overall post count now is about 80.

I have this Dell U2412M, that is the monitor on my desktop system now for at least 6 years. The monitor has lots of miles on it, because of work and then the pandemic lockdown. This morning, the monitor suddenly lost power. The blue LED in the power button would not turn on. Following the instructions all over the web, I disconnected the power cable, waited, then reconnected the cable. After about 10 minutes of wait, the monitor worked about, but for only 10-15 seconds before quitting. Using a different power cable I had the same results.

I suspect it is the power supply, but Dell doesn't seem to sell replacement power boards, so I would need to go to a repair shop, = $$$.

Is the power supply the likely culprit? Is it even worth it to repair a monitor this old that was used many hours each day, going back years now:
Click to expand...
You really need a couple basic tools to know for sure, namely a multimeter for diagnosing, and a soldering iron if you want to repair. I would drop what you're researching and head straight to the store to at least buy a multimeter.

It will more than pay for itself many times over. Hell, it can probably even salvage this monitor, saving you a new monitor cost (for now), or you could turn it around and sell it if you can you repair it. Without a multimeter, you're just swinging blindly in the dark. A multimeter will tell you in two seconds flat if it's the power supply or not, saving you hours of research/guesswork/deduction. And if it's not the power, it'll also help you find the specific problem component(s) that is.

I can't tell you how many things I've been able to repair or salvage, including expensive electronics that others have assumed dead and tossed out, only for it to be a single solder joint or $0.79 capacitor replaced to make it good as new. There are tons of free resources online for how to use these, including Youtube videos showing how to fix anything/everything.

But at the very least you should absolutely have a multimeter. It's the modern day "hammer". You don't need anything fancy, the most basic will do 90% of all you'll ever need it for. I would head to a Harbor Freight and snag one there. China manufacturing jokes aside, they've actually got some quality stuff for the price you pay, and their return/exchange policy is great, so no fret there.

They always have rotating coupons on nearly everything, and to make it super easy, someone built a web tool that aggregates the all the coupons, making them searchable: HF coupon search/aggregator. I always check it beforehand, since at the very least even if there's not a specific coupon for an item I need, there's usually percentage-off catchall coupon that can be used. Super handy, especially since you can show the coupons from your screen at checkout without having to print (FTR I have no ties or connection to HF or that website).

And then if you end up wanting the ability to do electronic repairs, you'll need a soldering iron. I have a Weller I've trusted for years, but I recently have been seeing a lot of buzz around these newish "pencil" soldering irons. There was a Slickdeals thread on this the other day that I was following, but the comments were buzzing about an alternative iron that was half the cost of the deal. You can see it in the discussion yourself, otherwise a direct link is here. I saw enough positive recommendations for it that I decided I'm going to buy one myself, reasoning it'll come in handy for any outdoors repairs, like cars. It was out-of-stock when I was there, but I see it's back in stock now (I have no ties/interests to this tool, the company, or SD).

Probably more information than you wanted to know, but I promise, invest in these two tools -- at the very least the multimeter -- and you'll be wondering why you didn't do this years ago. I promise it'll more than pay for itself in the diagnostic ability alone you'll develop!
 
Coldblackice said:
You really need a couple basic tools to know for sure, namely a multimeter for diagnosing, and a soldering iron if you want to repair. I would drop what you're researching and head straight to the store to at least buy a multimeter.

It will more than pay for itself many times over. Hell, it can probably even salvage this monitor, saving you a new monitor cost (for now), or you could turn it around and sell it if you can you repair it. Without a multimeter, you're just swinging blindly in the dark. A multimeter will tell you in two seconds flat if it's the power supply or not, saving you hours of research/guesswork/deduction. And if it's not the power, it'll also help you find the specific problem component(s) that is.

I can't tell you how many things I've been able to repair or salvage, including expensive electronics that others have assumed dead and tossed out, only for it to be a single solder joint or $0.79 capacitor replaced to make it good as new. There are tons of free resources online for how to use these, including Youtube videos showing how to fix anything/everything.

But at the very least you should absolutely have a multimeter. It's the modern day "hammer". You don't need anything fancy, the most basic will do 90% of all you'll ever need it for. I would head to a Harbor Freight and snag one there. China manufacturing jokes aside, they've actually got some quality stuff for the price you pay, and their return/exchange policy is great, so no fret there.

They always have rotating coupons on nearly everything, and to make it super easy, someone built a web tool that aggregates the all the coupons, making them searchable: HF coupon search/aggregator. I always check it beforehand, since at the very least even if there's not a specific coupon for an item I need, there's usually percentage-off catchall coupon that can be used. Super handy, especially since you can show the coupons from your screen at checkout without having to print (FTR I have no ties or connection to HF or that website).

And then if you end up wanting the ability to do electronic repairs, you'll need a soldering iron. I have a Weller I've trusted for years, but I recently have been seeing a lot of buzz around these newish "pencil" soldering irons. There was a Slickdeals thread on this the other day that I was following, but the comments were buzzing about an alternative iron that was half the cost of the deal. You can see it in the discussion yourself, otherwise a direct link is here. I saw enough positive recommendations for it that I decided I'm going to buy one myself, reasoning it'll come in handy for any outdoors repairs, like cars. It was out-of-stock when I was there, but I see it's back in stock now (I have no ties/interests to this tool, the company, or SD).

Probably more information than you wanted to know, but I promise, invest in these two tools -- at the very least the multimeter -- and you'll be wondering why you didn't do this years ago. I promise it'll more than pay for itself in the diagnostic ability alone you'll develop!
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Thanks for all this info. I do have a multi-meter, which I use mostly for checking battery life, and an occasional AC feed. However, my electronics repairs skills are pretty much non-existent. You can't know everything or do everything. Also, just yesterday I dropped off the monitor at a recycling center. It was eight years old. A month earlier, we had a very old Samsung monitor go bad. The display worked, but there were lots of dead pixels. We also had to replace that monitor.
 
As someone that has repaired hundreds of Dell monitors over the years, including similar models to the one you had, I can say that it was most likely capacitor failure that caused it to die. Dell did not learn anything from their billion dollar losses in the capacitor plague era and continues to use shit capacitors in their monitors.

While the backlight could have failed, it was unlikely. Those LED backlights usually go purple before they die from wearing out the phosphor. I worked at a hospital two years ago that had those monitors running 24/7 for almost a decade by that point and they had very few monitor failures, just lots of very purple screens.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
As someone that has repaired hundreds of Dell monitors over the years, including similar models to the one you had, I can say that it was most likely capacitor failure that caused it to die. Dell did not learn anything from their billion dollar losses in the capacitor plague era and continues to use shit capacitors in their monitors.

While the backlight could have failed, it was unlikely. Those LED backlights usually go purple before they die from wearing out the phosphor. I worked at a hospital two years ago that had those monitors running 24/7 for almost a decade by that point and they had very few monitor failures, just lots of very purple screens.
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What do you think about this. If I unplugged the monitor for like 10 minutes, then plugged it back in, it would work, for say 10-20 seconds. Then it would fail again, completely dark screen. This was repeatable. I don't doubt that someone like you could have revived this monitor. But I simply don't have your technical skill and knowledge.
 
philb2 said:
What do you think about this. If I unplugged the monitor for like 10 minutes, then plugged it back in, it would work, for say 10-20 seconds. Then it would fail again, completely dark screen. This was repeatable. I don't doubt that someone like you could have revived this monitor. But I simply don't have your technical skill and knowledge.
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I made a video two years ago on taking one of these monitors apart:


It was most likely repairable. If the caps were bad, they could easily be replaced with basic tools. Those monitors were mostly screwless designs, all you had to do was use the tips of your fingers pressing inside the bezel touching the screen and pull up and out, the bezel snaps away and the monitor basically falls apart. Sometimes there were four screws under the plate where the base latches into the back of the monitor. Earlier models had the "electronics box" screwed into the LCD panel, and required a phillips head screwdriver. Later models just used Nashua tape to save money.

If the backlight strip went out, that's a pig of a job, which the video shows. Another far more irritating failure is when SMD components fail on the TCON board. The monitor featured in the video later failed with the dreaded "half purple" screen. I was able to use freeze spray to narrow down the area on the tcon board that was being problematic, and it was a super tiny SMD capacitor. I was able to remove it and the monitor worked for awhile, but failed again with the purple half screen. I gave up on it after that because I had other monitors that were less problematic.
 
philb2 said:
Thanks for all this info. I do have a multi-meter, which I use mostly for checking battery life, and an occasional AC feed. However, my electronics repairs skills are pretty much non-existent. You can't know everything or do everything. Also, just yesterday I dropped off the monitor at a recycling center. It was eight years old. A month earlier, we had a very old Samsung monitor go bad. The display worked, but there were lots of dead pixels. We also had to replace that monitor.
Click to expand...
If you're able to follow simple instructions off a tutorial, you have the skills to do it / learn it. If you search Youtube for "How to test power supply", you'll see a smattering of how-to videos showing you how to do this with your multimeter, able to do it in probably less than a minute -- and then you have that ability going forward, able to use it on any devices you come across.

But yeah, it was probably capacitors. 90% of the time, it's capacitors. Like mentioned above, had it been a backlight or toasted pixels, then it would've been an easy toss/recycle. But capacitors are easy to replace, for future reference (well, unless they're surface mount and you're a beginner, but many are still through-hole).
 
Coldblackice said:
If you're able to follow simple instructions off a tutorial, you have the skills to do it / learn it. If you search Youtube for "How to test power supply", you'll see a smattering of how-to videos showing you how to do this with your multimeter, able to do it in probably less than a minute -- and then you have that ability going forward, able to use it on any devices you come across.

But yeah, it was probably capacitors. 90% of the time, it's capacitors. Like mentioned above, had it been a backlight or toasted pixels, then it would've been an easy toss/recycle. But capacitors are easy to replace, for future reference (well, unless they're surface mount and you're a beginner, but many are still through-hole).
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Even though I know next to nothing about hardware, a looong time ago I worked for a hardware company with a 130 foot long wave soldering machine and pick-and-place robots. Everything was through-hole in those days. Every so often, I now look at a board and see all those surface mount devices and their impossibly closely spaced pin pads, and I think that like new cars, it's not possible for the average Joe to repair circuit boards and longer. Back in the day, I used to do all my own car work, including major tuneups. I had a timing light, dwell meter and spark plug point gages. You checked the plug points and rotated the distributor by hand to get the timiing right. Now, fergeddiboudid.
 
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