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Bright red flashes from my CRT

post #1 of 6
3/31/12 at 2:26pm
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I have an HP A7217A (Sony FW900 - the king of all CRT monitors) that I've been using daily since about 2007. The picture on it is still really good but I'm afraid the monitor is dying.

About 2 years ago or so, I started getting an occasional bright red flash or two when I'd first turn on the monitor. That turned into 3 or 4 flashes and over time slowly got worse and worse. Then blue started acting up - I'd get super bright blue and red flashes upon turning on the monitor. The monitor would always stabilize within a few minutes and then I'd be good to go.

Well, the problem has gotten so bad now that when I turn on the monitor, I get no red colors at all, and sometimes after it warms up 5-10 minutes the red will all of a sudden come on and start flashing like crazy. It often shuts the monitor off. Now I'm to the point of multiple restarts and sometimes 20 minutes of tinkering (turning the monitor on and off) to get this thing to stabilize. And even then, maybe once an hour or so, I still get the random red flash of light.

Is it hopeless, is my monitor on its death bed? Or is there possibly an easy fix? I've contemplated just leaving it on 24/7 but I don't really want to do that.
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post #2 of 6
4/1/12 at 10:12am
You could try touching up the soldering points on the neck board, sometimes they can brake lose and cause the problems you described.

This may or may not fix the problem, but it's worth a shot...
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post #3 of 6
4/1/12 at 11:26am
You also could have dirty or shorted color guns on that monitor as they will do that sometimes when they arc out for a sec. If you can find a CRT rejuvinater you might be able to clean the guns and knock the internal crud off that may be causing the issues. The idea of bad solder joints is a good place to look too as if the circuit looses info it could go full blast or shut off the affected color gun.
Be careful touching things though as some of the drive voltages are pretty high if you touch the wrong spot. I usually use a insulated screw driver handle and start tapping where I think the bad joints might be to be safe.
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post #4 of 6
4/1/12 at 12:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dartman View Post

You also could have dirty or shorted color guns on that monitor as they will do that sometimes when they arc out for a sec. If you can find a CRT rejuvinater you might be able to clean the guns and knock the internal crud off that may be causing the issues.

I was going to mentioned that but to be honest, most Sony Trinitron's don't take rejuvenations that well. In my experience rejuvenating a Trinitron doesn't last or can sometimes make a bad Sony CRT worst. So unless it's a bad component or soldering connection, I would not suggest to brandonsvsu to buy a $160 rejuvenater off of ebay.

Frankly, I've always stayed away from Sony monitors made after the mid 90s, there not reliable computer displays compare to other brands...
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post #5 of 6
4/1/12 at 1:08pm
Well your right about the trinitron tubes being very fragile and not taking a hit very well but sometimes they will hold a while.
I have two Beltron units here, one I was given years ago by a shop that I took their rejects TV's from, and another I got on eBay for less then 20 bucks shipped with a full rebuild and manuals, but I found some wiring problems I later fixed by following the original units layout.
I usually wont do a Sony unless it's really bad looking as the success rate is about 50/50, but it's great as a last resort when you might have to replace or bin it anyways. If you do try it a very quick cleaning cycle is in order as they tend to take that better then a full rejuvination that tends to completely blow any output that's left to the guns on those. The old regular style CRT's used to do well, especially the Zenith V grade tubes with the high brightness phosphers.
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post #6 of 6
4/26/12 at 8:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by brandonsvsu View Post

About 2 years ago or so, I started getting an occasional bright red flash or two when I'd first turn on the monitor. That turned into 3 or 4 flashes and over time slowly got worse and worse. Then blue started acting up - I'd get super bright blue and red flashes upon turning on the monitor. The monitor would always stabilize within a few minutes and then I'd be good to go.

Well, the problem has gotten so bad now that when I turn on the monitor, I get no red colors at all, and sometimes after it warms up 5-10 minutes the red will all of a sudden come on and start flashing like crazy. It often shuts the monitor off. Now I'm to the point of multiple restarts and sometimes 20 minutes of tinkering (turning the monitor on and off) to get this thing to stabilize. And even then, maybe once an hour or so, I still get the random red flash of light.

Is it hopeless, is my monitor on its death bed? Or is there possibly an easy fix? I've contemplated just leaving it on 24/7 but I don't really want to do that.

This is similar to what's happening to my FW900. I get bright red flashes at times, more often while the monitor is warming up in the first half hour of use. The entire screen goes red, you can't see any other colors, and you can even see red diagonal lines on the screen when this happens. Sometimes it stays red for an entire second or 1.5 seconds and then turns off, which the light flashing green and orange. I just turn the monitor off and on again and I don't get flashes for the rest of the day(but I only use it 2-3 hours a day). Also, I sometimes see blue flashes, but most of the blue fashes happen from sudden vibrations(like something falling down on the table the monitor is standing on, or smacking the side of the monitor with my hand).
This CRT is very old, made in October 2000. I've been using it since September 2011. Maybe they improved the soldering in later years? Or maybe this one just has a lot of hours on it?
I'll open up the monitor and look for bad solder connections sometime.
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