Is my monitor dying a slow death?

[WelshDdraig]

Hey everyone,

I think I know the answer to this, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
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So - my trusted Samsung S24D590L which I bought all the way back in 2015 seems to having a few issues. Most notably over the past few days, it seems like the backlight is playing up. It will flicker for a bit, then go back to normal and then flicker again with a dark strip across the display.
 
Does anyone know how I may be able to fix this (as I love this monitor - to the point I managed to track down a second one recently for a 3x display set-up (For some reason, PLS seems better to me than IPS - even thought they are the same technology - I think...) or is this one of those "just get ready as one day it won't have a backlight" moments and get ready to get an upgrade. If I do, I'll possibly just update my 3x 1080p monitors to an ultrawide of minimum 100/144Hz or a single 1440p 144hz+ monitor - would anyone have some good suggestions that are fairly cheap? (I know - just typically I just missed Black Friday lol).

Anyway, thanks for reading and any advice you might be able to provide. 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Plermpel]

Looks like some of the diodes on an edge-lit strip are dying, one seems to have allready failed, in the upper right part.

 

If you are very handy you can fix this for shure, just replace the SMD LEDs on the edge light strip, also since the LED flickeres it might just be a failed soldering point since LEDs are unlikley to flicker that way, they either work or they don't.

[Stahlmann]

The issue you're having could just as well be a bad cable, so check that at first. I managed to solve a few situations where i thought the display was done just by getting a high quality cable.

 

Another thing to try before investing money anywhere is to just use DDU and reinstall your graphics driver.

 

And yes, PLS is just Samsung's name for IPS. They are exactly the same LCD technology.

 

If you want to replace them with an ultrawide the Gigabyte G34WQC is a great value oriented choice.

[WelshDdraig]

35 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

The issue you're having could just as well be a bad cable, so check that at first. I managed to solve a few situations where i thought the display was done just by getting a high quality cable.

I've tried multiple cables and DP adapters and the issue was persisting. I think its just down to the age of the monitor and the fact it has been back and forth university with me so some damage over the years internally with the moving. 

I've tried DDU as well to no avail, as for PLS == IPS, I thought so, but compared to my other IPS screen (also a Samsung - and much newer) the PLS seems like it has more colour & brighter whites. (The brightness, colour temperature and contrast are all default as well). Oh well - must just be my eyes. 

Cheers for the advice

 

42 minutes ago, Plermpel said:

 

If you are very handy you can fix this for shure, just replace the SMD LEDs on the edge light strip, also since the LED flickeres it might just be a failed soldering point since LEDs are unlikley to flicker that way, they either work or they don't.

I'm pretty good with soldering, however I don't really want to take the panel apart to try and fix it incase I damage the panel itself. The screen is one of those "little to no bezel" ones with no visible screws - that and I wouldn't know what LEDs I would need to get. If I do decide to get a new monitor in the future and this is then just additional - I'll possibly give it a shot. SMD work just scares me a little - lol. 

[Stahlmann]

2 minutes ago, WelshDdraig said:

I've tried DDU as well to no avail, as for PLS == IPS, I thought so, but compared to my other IPS screen (also a Samsung - and much newer) the PLS seems like it has more colour & brighter whites. (The brightness, colour temperature and contrast are all default as well). Oh well - must just be my eyes.

That's not neccesarily up to PLS vs IPS. These differences are just there for different monitors. Most IPS monitors differ in one way or another, be it color gamut, accuracity, brightness, viewing angles, response times etc.

[creesch]

1 hour ago, WelshDdraig said:

I'm pretty good with soldering, however I don't really want to take the panel apart to try and fix it incase I damage the panel itself. The screen is one of those "little to no bezel" ones with no visible screws - that and I wouldn't know what LEDs I would need to get. If I do decide to get a new monitor in the future and this is then just additional - I'll possibly give it a shot. SMD work just scares me a little - lol. 

I was curious and had a look at own Samsung monitor which is slightly more modern but also doesn't have screws visible. 

 

If you ever decide to try and tackle a repair it appears that you'd need a flathead screw driver or probably better a dedicated prying tool. The edge of the panel on the backside is held is clipped in place and it appears that on the bottom a lot of Samsung monitors have a hole that allows you get started unclipping the entire backside. See also this video where someone is working on a widescreen display. 

 

As far as the needed LEDs go, there is very little information on it so you'd need to find that out after opening it up. 

 

So still probably a good idea to not attempt it unless you already have a replacement, but I figured I'd provide you with what I found anyway.