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Dell 17inch LCD - Dimension - WHITE SCREEN

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RookPSU

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Jan 9, 2003
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My sister was having a problem with her year old LCD flat panel monitor. It seemed one day the screen just turned white. If you would turn it off and then on, it would power back up with a white screen. I know it's the monitor as I hooked it up to several computers, white screen all around. I was about to trash it until I decided to smack the back of the monitor real hard and viola... screen reappeared. The screen would work perfectly for about 2-3 days and then it would fade out (and it did actually slowly fade out over the course of 10 seconds or so as I noticed the transformation on several occasions) to the white screen again, requiring another smack. Now does anyone know what might be causing this. Unfortunately i'm a software engineer so my expertise with the components of an LCD is limited at best. Any ideas? As, if possible, i'd love to apply a permanent fix before I break the damn thing smacking it around.

 
I really dont do monitor repairs so cant properly answer this however i can say this:

1 You should contact a repair service and tell them the problem. That sort of issue, it would seem to me, is either a short or loose wire or connection, or something inside the monitor is going bad on you.

2 I havent done this, but you could, very carefully take it apart, just to check and see if some wire is shorted or loose, or some connection is loose. I believe you will find a sort of ribbon cable inside and perhaps that or something like that is loose and needs to be tightened up. Or perhaps a wire loose or the plastic coating rubbed off and causing a short. I say this as they are more similar to laptop screens.

With crt monitors i wouldnt even go inside them as they hold a charge that can kill even when its not plugged in. I dont know if its the same with lcd monitors. Hence i would suggest you use google and find a site where you can find out. I would do that before going inside an lcd monitor.
Then again, someone here will have that little bit of info for you, just hang in there a while and the answer will come. In the meantime you could do the number 1 answer.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
I think you might want to check to see if the monitor has EXTENDED memory slots. Flat panel monitors are very similar to laptop LCD displays. They need RAM to operate. There might be a small door with a screw on the back of the monitor. If so, open it and see if there are any 144pin RAM chips in there. They may have gone bad.
Most likely if they are there, they will probably be PC100 or PC133MHz SDRAM SODIM chips. Get the number off of them and do a google search and you will be able to locate them online. Bad RAM is the main cause of "white screen of death
 
Well, heres another piece of hardware info for us!!


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
You can do a monitor self-test on you LCD, just unplug the monitor cable from the back of your computer (monitor should still be connected to power source) and if you still get a white screen instead of "check signal cable" message after a few seconds, you have a failing monitor. I believe that if you got the monitor from dell as a separate order, it has an automatic two-year warranty so better call the tech support for a replacement.
 
by the way, i certainly meant my above comment to be interpreted in a positive way.

Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
garebo:
Yes - we're always learning.

"Only a fool thinks he knows it all"!
 
Totally amazing. I bet my total knowledge of computers is like .0000000001 of one percent of the total. Like a grain of sand on a beach.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
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