Monitor problems!

I use a NEC Spectraview PA231 monitor. It's a full HD screen, bought it in 2011. I use it with an old Mac Pro (2009 but tweaked and still gets the job done). I plan to replace both later this year (waiting on the new Mac Mini's). Yesterday there suddenly appeared a yellow tint in the upper left corner of the screen. And after waking from sleep, or after booting the system, the screen flickered, with the epicentre in said corner. Today it also flickered a few times at random, as I was working on the Mac. Oh surprise, it flickers now!

I checked all the cables and all is well.

What do you think, is my nice screen about to die?
Or is there maybe still something I could do to fix it?

TIA

Hi Levina-

Does the color change if you press gently on it? Could it be the bezel pressing on it? However, that hypothesis doesn't explain the flickering.
A 10 your old monitor is old...typed while I'm using a monitor of a similar vintage.

Hi Jack!

No, I don't see any change of colour when pressing it.
I suppose 10 years is rather old for a monitor. It is a pro monitor though. Expensive.
Well, can't be helped. Time to go shopping for another one.

Thank you!

Can you check the monitor on another computer? Could the old Mac be the problem?

chuckmiller wrote in post #19380083
Can you check the monitor on another computer? Could the old Mac be the problem?

Ah, there's a thought. I don't have another computer but I think it's possible to connect the monitor to my iPad. I'll look into that.
Thanks!

Yellow tint and flicker is usually the backlight inverter failing, hence the lower voltage to the backlight (yellowing) and safety shutdown circuit firing (flickering).

It'll get worse as the board gets weaker and will eventually fail. It'll look like a black screen, but if you shine a flashlight against the panel, you'll see the image when this happens.

Search on the web for PA231 Inverter and swap the board out. It's easy and will fix the monitor for a while. Usually, it's the caps drying up and dying that causes it, but it can also be heat failure on one of the semis, often from dried up heat sink grease.

docholliday_sc001 wrote in post #19380189
Yellow tint and flicker is usually the backlight inverter failing, hence the lower voltage to the backlight (yellowing) and safety shutdown circuit firing (flickering).

It'll get worse as the board gets weaker and will eventually fail. It'll look like a black screen, but if you shine a flashlight against the panel, you'll see the image when this happens.

Search on the web for PA231 Inverter and swap the board out. It's easy and will fix the monitor for a while. Usually, it's the caps drying up and dying that causes it, but it can also be heat failure on one of the semis, often from dried up heat sink grease.

Wow, you know monitors!
I’m looking for a PA231 Inverter now. It would be nice if replacing it would fix the screen, if only for a while.
Thank you!

Or, look around for a (less old) well priced good quality used monitor to get you by until you replace your full system. That might be a better option than hoping a repair to an old unit revives it (but only until another part fails). Just thinking aloud here.

chuckmiller wrote in post #19380237
Or, look around for a (less old) well priced good quality used monitor to get you by until you replace your full system. That might be a better option than hoping a repair to an old unit revives it (but only until another part fails). Just thinking aloud here.

I might have to do that because I’ve searched for an inverter and haven’t found anything. Not on Google, not on eBay, not even on AliExpress. On Google I’ve scrolled down to where you get results in Chinese. So I don’t think that’s going to work. I’m looking for and on “replacement parts” sites at the moment, but no luck so far either. Also nothing on the NEC site.

So a used monitor could be an alternative. Or I could just go ahead and get a new one ahead of replacing the old Mac Pro. It would be nicer to update everything together though, so I will know for sure it's all compatible and works well. I know e.g. that certain monitors did bad with the new M1 Minis. I’ll look at used monitors first though. Thanks, Chuck.

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #19380258
I might have to do that because I’ve searched for an inverter and haven’t found anything. Not on Google, not on eBay, not even on AliExpress. On Google I’ve scrolled down to where you get results in Chinese. So I don’t think that’s going to work. I’m looking for and on “replacement parts” sites at the moment, but no luck so far either. Also nothing on the NEC site.

So a used monitor could be an alternative. Or I could just go ahead and get a new one ahead of replacing the old Mac Pro. It would be nicer to update everything together though, so I will know for sure it's all compatible and works well. I know e.g. that certain monitors did bad with the new M1 Minis. I’ll look at used monitors first though. Thanks, Chuck.

See if this place has it...http://partmaster24.co​m …universal-inverter/38256/. Make sure you have the full model number off the tag on the back, not just some generic wording off the front. I now see that you are in the Netherlands so that will add to the difficulty but perhaps this may be of some help. https://www.sharpnecdi​splays.eu …/support/sparep​arts.xhtml

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #19380234
Wow, you know monitors!
I’m looking for a PA231 Inverter now. It would be nice if replacing it would fix the screen, if only for a while.
Thank you!

I'm an electronics engineer...I've fixed a pile of these in the past. NEC makes good monitors, and they usually last forever. However, most users just throw them away when they fail and upgrade to a new monitor, unlike cheap consumer monitors where they get upgraded often. That usually makes spare parts harder to find. If you can find an actual electronics repair shop (not one of the modern day repair "board swapper" places), they should be able to fix the inverter for fairly cheap.

Otherwise, that's a 10+ year old monitor, so it's probably time to get a newer or different one. There's a few PA271 units on ebay for decently cheap, but since you're not in the US, shipping may make that suddenly not-so-cheap.

There's not many parts that fail in any monitor. Most only have 3 boards and a panel. Out of the 3 boards, the signal board rarely fails; the power supply only fails if designed poorly or hit by surge; and, the inverter is usually the weakest link in the whole system. Panel failures are the rarest especially on LED panels.

Being an electronics engineer sure explains your know-how, doc. I do agree with you that it would be worthwhile to fix the NEC monitor as it is a quality display and I would love to. If only I could find the inverter for it. Shipping a used NEC monitor from the US is not a good idea as customs and taxes and what have you, would drive up the price significantly. So I won't go that route.

I have tried all the suggestions given so far. The spare parts sites didn't yield any results. I did see NEC inverters but not for this particular display.
I also looked at used monitors but, I don't know. It was a good suggestion and I checked the relevant sites here but the good ones are also still rather expensive used and the cheaper ones aren't much more expensive when bought new. Which is why I am now actually leaning towards picking up a new budget screen to tie me over, like the BenQ EX2780Q or the ASUS ProArt PA278QV. Although I think they might be gaming monitors, especially the BenQ with its 144Hz refresh rate. But they are true 10-bit panels*; so that is nice. I need to look at reviews, see if they can be calibrated properly.

Or is there another monitor that any of you tech gurus could suggest? A nice budget display that would do for editing photos for a while? Preferably a 27" Quad HD?

EDIT: *They are listed as 10bit monitors but aren’t!

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #19380432
Being an electronics engineer sure explains your know-how, doc. I do agree with you that it would be worthwhile to fix the NEC monitor as it is a quality display and I would love to. If only I could find the inverter for it. Shipping a used NEC monitor from the US is not a good idea as customs and taxes and what have you, would drive up the price significantly. So I won't go that route.

I have tried all the suggestions given so far. The spare parts sites didn't yield any results. I did see NEC inverters but not for this particular display.
I also looked at used monitors but, I don't know. It was a good suggestion and I checked the relevant sites here but the good ones are also still rather expensive used and the cheaper ones aren't much more expensive when bought new. Which is why I am now actually leaning towards picking up a new budget screen to tie me over, like the BenQ EX2780Q or the ASUS ProArt PA278QV. Although I think they might be gaming monitors, especially the BenQ with its 144Hz refresh rate. But they are true 10-bit panels, so that is nice. I need to look at reviews, see if they can be calibrated properly.

Or is there another monitor that any of you tech gurus could suggest? A nice budget display that would do for editing photos for a while? Preferably a 27" Quad HD?

For critical color, I tend to use Eizo or NEC. For slightly less critical, my favorite is the older Dell U2413 - 10-bit output, good enough that I can print and match almost exactly, easy to find spare parts, cheap to acquire used, and easy to find used units. Once calibrated (I just use an i1Pro and DispCalGUI), it's almost dead on to my Eizos - and matches my prints of the wide format printers. I'm actually running 6x U2413 on my main "desktop" in 2 rows of 3. I have the Eizos in the studio for the capture box. I'm a commercial shooter, so color critical work is the norm. When a client brings in fabric or other items, the shots have to match dead-on.

Gaming monitors suck - horrible color and accuracy. High frame rates don't do a thing for real usage. They're also designed like other gamer crap - cool at first, but designed to fail as they know that gamers will just go out and buy the next latest-greatest in a few months.

I am not intimately familiar with that particular monitor, but I have saved more than a few monitors from the junk pile. The electrolytic caps in a monitor are one of the first places that I would check. If you can see the tops of the capacitors and they do not have a bulge at the top, they are probably OK. If you feel the top of the capacitor bulging up, it is bad....I have saved more that a few monitors from the grave yard by replacing a bulging Electrolytic cap.

Attached is a photo of a bad electrolytic.

Good Luck

110yd wrote in post #19380500
I am not intimately familiar with that particular monitor, but I have saved more than a few monitors from the junk pile. The electrolytic caps in a monitor are one of the first places that I would check. If you can see the tops of the capacitors and they do not have a bulge at the top, they are probably OK. If you feel the top of the capacitor bulging up, it is bad....I have saved more that a few monitors from the grave yard by replacing a bulging Electrolytic cap.

Good Luck

Not all bad caps bulge. Most of the new ones don't vent when they drop out of tolerance. The "eco" electrolytes in them just dry up slowly and they look perfect, yet they'll measure > 40$ out of tolerance. The typical failure in high voltage supplies, like inverters, isn't ever the electrolytics - it's the MOSFETs.