2 lenovo monitors went out with the same problem. Fixable?

[mothballer]

I have a trio of Lenovo le22-20 monitors. About 6 months ago one of them crapped out. Now looks like the pictures. Been getting by with 2 but earlier, it happened again to another one. Same exact problem. Even the shapes are the same.  So it's the exact same problem.  

 

The pic is with the monitor not hooked up to the computer.  So I know it's definitely the monitor.

 

I don't think it's caps. I'm not well versed enough to determine that. I did have the first monitor that went out apart. I looked at the boards and didn't see any swelling caps, or brown spots. I can take pics of the board. But the picture might be a dead giveaway.

 

 I've had these monitors a few years.  If they were fixable with a soldering iron fairly easily that would be best. I'm not ready to have to buy a new monitor. If 2 went out the same way, I don't have any reason to believe this last will keep working much longer.

 

Thanks.

[OddOod]

Welcome (back) to the forums!
First, I assume you checked warranty and found that they are out of coverage. If not, DO THAT. Even if they are past coverage, you could contact customer service and see if they can point you in the right direction. My assumption is that it's a dying digitizer, though I'm no expert. It's possible that they will have old stock kicking around and sell it to you for a sweetheart deal (Sceptre hooked me up a couple years back).
There is likely *some* component that is dying. Caps can die and leave no external sign that they have. If you are well equipped with a good multimeter and scope, you could manually check each component against its rating and identify which needs replacing. If you are further even more well equipped with a reflow workstation and very lucky, you can grab replacement components and swap them in. With a significant amount of time and effort and a healthy splash of luck, you might end up with functional monitors. At least until another component dies. 
If that seems too steep a hill to climb (and let's be clear, it really REALLY should be), you could look at the board and hunt around ebay/aliX for a drop in replacement. I know there are a lot of monitor brands that very lightly customize boards from some OEM or another, slap their brand and model number on it, and use it in multiple products. I've not had great success with that path. After spending ~90$ on a 100$ monitor, I got it up and running but with some *wonky* colors. 

[mothballer]

That's a good idea to reach out to Lenovo anyway. They are 3 years out of warranty. I only managed to track down a single replacement control board and they wanted almost 50 bucks with shipping. I assume that the board is the actual problem and not just caps which would be easy. But I only paid 90 a piece (slight sale on newegg). More than half of what I paid sounds bad news to me. However any of those monitors for sale have shot up to 165 bucks which is insane. I can get a much better monitor for that price. They are just 1080p 75hz hdmi monitors so they aren't even special. 

Well I'll hit up lenovo and see what they say.

[Robchil]

i would consider those e-waste...  and get new ones that are better. 

 

[mothballer]

1 hour ago, Robchil said:

i would consider those e-waste...  and get new ones that are better. 

 

Yeah and to the recylcer will be what ultimately happens I think if Lenovo doesn't want to be of any help. I didn't want to have to buy a new monitor(s) til I upgraded the GPU first. Figure I'd ask since it's the identical problem on two displays and I like to tinker.

[Robchil]

8 hours ago, mothballer said:

Yeah and to the recylcer will be what ultimately happens I think if Lenovo doesn't want to be of any help. I didn't want to have to buy a new monitor(s) til I upgraded the GPU first. Figure I'd ask since it's the identical problem on two displays and I like to tinker.

same issue on both sounds like a factory fault tho.. but due to age it's no dice on warranty.. 

knock on wood.. i'm still using my dell 3007 as secondary monitor... it's old enough to vote..