I've got this old lcd Acer x193w monitor in a home PC building. It's
connected to my PC by a VGA cable and by an IEC cable to my UPS to be supplied.
Today an 1 pixel wide red vertical line appeared on the right side of
this monitor in correspondence of its on/off button as soon as I
switched it on in; actually I've been pressing this button quite often
along the years of usage, if it could be important.

This line doesn't appears in screenshot images but appears in BIOS
environment and in both one of my OSs and it appears even if its VGA
cable is disconnected from my PC so I think this issue doesn't deal with
my PC components; anyway this is my cfg:
- amd ryzen 2200g with Vega 8;
- msi b450-a pro (bios V10.7; 2019-03-07);
- 2x4gb hyperx predator @3200 cl16 (working @2400 by default)
- wd black 1tb hdd;
- corsair cx450 PSU;
- no graphic card.

Honestly I don't know if this is a monitor electronic issue for sure or
I've to consider other ways/things before trying to fix it, anyway I'd
like to listen to your opinions.

What do you think the problem is and how to fix it (if possible)?

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

MaxTheFast <max.home@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've got this old lcd Acer x193w monitor in a home PC building. It's connected to my PC by a VGA cable and by an IEC cable to my UPS to be supplied.
Today an 1 pixel wide red vertical line appeared on the right side of
this monitor in correspondence of its on/off button as soon as I
switched it on in; actually I've been pressing this button quite often
along the years of usage, if it could be important.

This line doesn't appears in screenshot images but appears in BIOS environment and in both one of my OSs and it appears even if its VGA
cable is disconnected from my PC so I think this issue doesn't deal with
my PC components; anyway this is my cfg:
- amd ryzen 2200g with Vega 8;
- msi b450-a pro (bios V10.7; 2019-03-07);
- 2x4gb hyperx predator @3200 cl16 (working @2400 by default)
- wd black 1tb hdd;
- corsair cx450 PSU;
- no graphic card.

Honestly I don't know if this is a monitor electronic issue for sure or
I've to consider other ways/things before trying to fix it, anyway I'd
like to listen to your opinions.

What do you think the problem is and how to fix it (if possible)?

Sounds like a defect in the monitor since you still see the vertical
line when the monitor is disconnected from the video card. Could be an internal cable needs to be reseated, but more like the logic inside the
monitor went bad (burned out or defective chip). Nothing you can do
outside the monitor to fix the problem. Since it is an old monitor,
time to watch for sales on a replacement monitor. Just before you buy,
give the old monitor a hard whack on all sides, top, and bottom should
it be a bad connection on a cable (but if that fixes it then the
indication is you open the case to unplug and reseat the cables).

You could get repair kits for LCD monitors, but replacing the inverter
and other PCBs won't help if it's the LCD panel that went bad. The Acer
x193w monitor is 19" widescreen with only 1440x900 native resolution.
Assuming the monitor is restricted to a 19" size, you can get a new one
for $70 and also has VGA:

https://www.newegg.com/viewsonic-va1903h-19-wxga/p/N82E16824116967?Item=9SIAN7GFG98199

However, there is a slight drop in resolution to 1366x768 (from your
1440x900). You can find other VGA (D-Sub) monitors there at 19":

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=101702297%20600030613%204814&Order=1

You said "no graphic card" which means you are using the video embedded
in the CPU of the AMD Ryzen 2200g. More important is your mobo which is
an MSI B450-a Pro which will dictate what video connectors are on its backpanel. From online images of that mobo, and its specs, that mobo
has VGA (D-Sub), DVI, and HDMI video outputs. When looking for a new
monitor, you might want to move to HDMI (and get an HDMI cable, too).

And if you're not physically limited in space to restrict you to a 19"
monitor, you could look at those with HDMI, bigger monitor, and higher resolution. According to the MSI manual, resolutions are:

- 1x VGA port, support a maximum resolution of 2048x1280 @60Hz,
1920x1200 @60Hz
- 1x DVI-D port, support a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 @60Hz*
- 1x HDMI™ 1.4 port, supports a maximum resolution of 4096x2160 @30Hz,
2560x1600 @60Hz*
* Only support when using AMD® Ryzen™ with Radeon Vega Graphics
Processors
* Maximum shared memory of 2048 MB

You said you have an AMD Ryzen w/Vega 8, so you could go much higher in resolution. Beware that text is still shown using the same number of
pixels, so higher resolution means pixels occupy less space making text smaller. You may have to up the DPI in Windows to make text legible.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=101702297%204814%20601411032&Order=1

You can other search criteria, like max monitor size, resolution, video
port types, and even a max price to fit in your budget. They show
several monitors under a $100 that are better than your old one. Or,
visit a local computer store to see what they have. Sales happen, and
it seems you can wait until you find a great deal.

You could repair the monitor, but the cost of the parts, and especially
if you take it to a shop, will cost more than getting a new monitor.

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: Usenet Elder (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

On 5/15/2023 1:16 PM, MaxTheFast wrote:

I've got this old lcd Acer x193w monitor in a home PC building. It's connected to my PC by a VGA cable and by an IEC cable to my UPS to be supplied.
Today an 1 pixel wide red vertical line appeared on the right side of this monitor in correspondence of its on/off button as soon as I switched it on in; actually I've been pressing this button quite often along the years of usage, if it could be important.

This line doesn't appears in screenshot images but appears in BIOS environment and in both one of my OSs and it appears even if its VGA cable is disconnected from my PC so I think this issue doesn't deal with my PC components; anyway this is my cfg:
- amd ryzen 2200g with Vega 8;
- msi b450-a pro (bios V10.7; 2019-03-07);
- 2x4gb hyperx predator @3200 cl16 (working @2400 by default)
- wd black 1tb hdd;
- corsair cx450 PSU;
- no graphic card.

Honestly I don't know if this is a monitor electronic issue for sure or I've to consider other ways/things before trying to fix it, anyway I'd like to listen to your opinions.

What do you think the problem is and how to fix it (if possible)?

It's an issue with the panel used to build the monitor.
It's like a horizontal and vertical matrix that needs be driven, by ICs.

I don't have any good pictures to illustrate at the naked panel level.
They're usually covered with more metal.

You can see a ribbon cable goes into a panel subassembly here, and
there are two CCFL tube power wire feeds on the left of the photo.
CCFL tubes use sinewave drive ("pure" AC) and the cables are capacitively coupled from the power board. When you see "foils" wrapped around
those cables, you endeavor to put the foils back the way you found them,
since at the 22pF level, those foils are "part of the circuit" from a
stray capacitance point of view. CCFL tubes draw around 3 watts of
power, at 700-1000VAC. Once the tube lights, the power source feeding it
drops the voltage to 700VAC or so.

The ribbon cable, has some sort of signal collection that needs to be
decoded into individual matrix drive signals. The ribbon cable then,
is most likely to have low-voltage digital signals on it.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/Df1XNm6K/x193w-back-opened.jpg

That's from a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih1msQ29WA8

The web information on LCD TV sets, they're pressing on stuff and
tapping on stuff. I don't know if that works on these smaller projects
or not. There is potentially a lot more at stake with a large TV,
giving the incentive to poke at it.

Quite some time ago, we were seeing pretty massive failures, like
200 random vertical lines on the panel malfunctioning. Almost like
"something is tearing away somewhere". That might be a problem at the
glass level. When you see just one defect, it could be an IC, and a
solid band of lines could be one IC driver. Whereas random lines could
be coming from some other root cause. Occasionally, it's the decoder
chip where the VGA signal comes in (but then the defect patterns
can contain 2D effects).

If I knew what to expect, I could warn you. I don't know if there
are elastomeric connectors underneath that metal surface or not.
Elastomeric compression conductors, was a scheme used on black and
white equipment status displays, for terminating a fair number of
electrical connections.

Pressing ("massaging") the front surface of an LCD panel, was for
interacting with the Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) that control individual pixels. Since your problem is a vertical column, that does not suggest massaging the front will work. It could be that pressing somewhere else
would help, but with that metal cover in the way, it's hard to say
what would work as a stimulus. Underneath the metal cover, the panel
is made of glass layers. And there could be materials bonded to the back of
the glass, for all I know.

Paul

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

I'd like to give this lcd acer a chance before trashing it.
Thanks for the youtube video that shows how to dismantle it. Your
screenshot is taken at about 5.05 and I guess what you called "ribbon
cable" would be the LVDS cable that connects the power board with panel, wouldn't it be?
My first attempt will be just disconnecting and re-connecting this cable
and I think I must be very "kind" with its connector to avoid to damage it.
I think it's quite funny to find videos on youtube that show monitors
fixings because everything seems very easy! In that video the technician
fixed the issues by changing a couple of capacitors as I could
understand (my English is very bad!). Therefore I guess it could be interesting to remove the 2 boards (power and main) to see if there's a
died capacitor but only in the case that reseating the ribbon clable
won't solve my issue. Do you think it will be useless? Do you think it's
more probable the cause relays on some IC?

If it could be interesting I've found these 2 acer x193w service guides:

1. http://monitor.espec.ws/files/acerv193w_728.pdf
- you can find the lvds cable ("ribbon cable"?) in the scheme at page 48
- the troubleshooting chapter is at pages 35-38: 1) No Power; 2) No
Picture; 3) Panel Power Circuit; 4) Keypad Board; 5) No Backlight

2. https://data2.manualslib.com/pdf6/133/13262/1326159-acer/x193w.pdf?a75aa3652fc53cde496bc929116e0a84
- the troubleshooting chapter is at pages 29-31: 1) No Power; 2) Missing Color; 3) Always show “NO SIGNEL” and you can find the "lvds signal" in the "Missing Color" flow chart with the CN8 connector which would be a FFC-30/NC connector

Do you think there could be something interesting to point our attention
to within the troubleshooting flow charts? Eg. some capacitors or
transistors or else?

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

On 5/17/2023 8:45 AM, MaxTheFast wrote:

Do you think there could be something interesting to point our attention to within the
troubleshooting flow charts? Eg. some capacitors or transistors or else?

I think the trouble is at the panel level, and as far as the
Youtube video is concerned, the panel has not been disassembled so we
can know what's in there, and how easy it is to damage.

We know there are CCFL tubes, as there's some high voltage
connectors by the look of it. The CCFL tubes would be on the
back of the panel glass. It's the fragility of the electrical
connections to the panel glass I'm worried about, and I don't
know what that stuff looks like in there. Or, for that matter,
how hard it is to get open (no, not opening the glass, just
the stuff at or near the back of the glass).

Paul

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)