Broken Monitor? Cook it in an Oven!

When I first laid my eyes on Gateway’s XHD3000 30-inch display, I was in love. It offered the 2560×1600 resolution I was looking for, great specs, an awesome content upscaler, an ample soundbar and looked great to boot. Once it came to market, I got a sample in to review, and not long after, I purchased the monitor and have been making full use of it ever since.

But, at about the 2-year mark, my unit began to exhibit minor issues. Of course, Gateway no longer warrantied the display, and it in fact stopped manufacturing them about a year after I bought it. The first issue I experienced was minor flickering in the panel, which overall wasn’t too noticeable. That was just the beginning, however.

As time went on, the display created a 1~5px wide (it varies) pixel line that spans from the top of the display toward the right side, and runs to the bottom. Though a little annoying, it certainly wasn’t a game-breaker and could easily be ignored when dealing with such large real estate. But, things continued to get worse when a “haze” became apparent at the left side of the display. From the absolute left-most part of the display, to about 6-inches in, a green haze caused slight discoloration to any content in that area. Again, annoying, but nothing major.

What was major, though, was an issue that began right after I returned from CES a few weeks ago. At two spots, the screen would flicker at such a rapid rate that it was simply difficult to look at, and truly impossible to use. You’d either go insane or have a seizure – neither of which are that great.

In scouring the Web, I found a thread at the [H]ard|Forums and discovered that I wasn’t even close to being the only one with these issues. In fact, all of the issues I just mentioned were also mentioned in this thread to a T, so I knew there was some hope of a fix.

The suggestion? To take out the display’s logic board, and cook it in an oven. Yes, cook it. This helps re-solder the contact between the main chip and its logic board, and is a fairly common suggestion for electronic issues. One user recommended 8 minutes at 375°C, so that’s what I went with. After the display was re-assembled, the flicker, and most of the other issues were completely gone. I still have the thin pixel line, but that seems to be more of a cable-related issue (internal), and one I’m not too concerned with.

So, if you ever have a display go on the fritz, don’t chuck it… it might just need to be cooked!