Repairing a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (bad capacitors and flickering) | blog.biernacki.ca

Repairing a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (bad capacitors and flickering)

Hardware, How To September 23rd, 2011

About a month ago, my Samsung SyncMaster 226BW began experiencing slight flickering with the screen. It became progressively worse and worse as the weeks went on, and finally it was at the point where it would take 5-10 minutes to ‘warm up’ and shake loose the flickering screen.

Not only was it concerning, but it was just plain annoying having the screen ‘seizure flash’ you. So, I started researching for a possible fix without buying a new monitor of course, I figured it must have been something cheap to fix. Well I uncovered that these monitors (as well as many other Samsung models + TVs) all suffered from the same woe. Bad Caps! Bad Capacitors were to blame for the flickering.

I started with the monitor, and laying it ‘face’ down on a towel to reduce the chance of damage to the LCD and opening it up to take a look:

and looked around the power board for bulging capacitors, and I found 2 of a possible 3 that I should replace:

Getting started here are all the tools you need:
Solder, soldering iron, 3 capacitors (2x 820UF 25V + 1x 330UF 25V)

You can purchase the needed capacitors at Mouser Electronics. Also I purchased my soldering iron and solder at my local Chicago Harbor Freight which ended up totaling me $25 bucks which is pretty cheap for a task that fixed an originally purchased ~$200 monitor that is 2 years out of warranty.

Anyway, after replacement, here is what the job looks like finished, and my monitor is now back in working condition!

In the end, this venture cost me less than $25 dollars, and only 30 minutes of actual hands on work. If you are saying to yourself “eh I can’t possibly do this”, well don’t worry this is VERY simple, just go step by step, detaching the old caps from the board is as easy as heating the points on the back of the board, and wiggling/pulling the caps loose. Its difficult to damage anything if you simply just pull the board out and work slowly watching not to clip anything.

Enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, post below.

Leave a comment Comment RSS

Maciej
Following soldering tips of new caps that were installed should be clipped to the same length as other elements to prevent electric arc particularly if board is installed in metal cage.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=615060580 Durin Brown
OMG I’m totally going to try this out this weekend… if this is all I need to do then im hoping it will fix it. Thanks for this post! I knew there was something I could do but I wasn’t even sure where to start
Chris
Worked like a dream for me…. used Panasonic FR series of caps from element 14
BOB
Samsung tells me that enough of us complain, the item might go into recall status — which means they fix it
THIS IS A HINT, FOLKS — CALL SAMSUNG!
Ronbrill
Same – found 3x820uF and 1x330uF caps all with slight bulge at top. When checked with capacitance meter all were well below their spec. Replaced 820uFs with 1000uF and 25V (just what I had on hand) and 330uF with 470uF 25V. Its now working like a charm. thankyou for post. It was not difficult to pull apart 3 screws at bottom plus 3 holding the stand. It should then unclip, removed small lead from power supply and larger lead to monitor at top (just carefully wiggle free while pushing on the little releasing clips). Was then able to turn unit over to gain access to power board, removed 3 screws from board and removed four more little leads (just remember where they go) and had full access to power board. Replaced bulging caps as explained.
Jakub
Bob, this issue has to do with bad capacitors from years ago, when the market was flooded by them (it wasn’t just Samsung, I’ve had bad power supplies & motherboards that suffered from this, a colleague of mine at work had this happen with his HP Laptop, the motherboard had to be replaced. You can call your manufacturer, but good luck getting it RMA’d after its warranty period.
Pingback: 22" TFT-LCD Monitor (richmond / seacliff) « freecys WordPress
F_soetaert
This solution also worked fine for me on my 226SW. Many thanks!!!
Archibaldt
Fix worked perfect for me, i couldn’t find the 820uf 25v locally so used a 1000uf 25v along with the 330uf 25v and it works perfect.
Antifreeze
Nice! Fixed. I had two capacitors bulging on top (110 and 111) with a little brown/purple junk coming out of the seam. $2 in caps from Mouser Electronics (and $6 shipping!), my neighbor’s soldering iron, and it’s working like a champ again. The kids aren’t even awake from their naps yet. Thanks!
Jobblow
My capacitors look fine, no bulging, no discoloration of any kind. I’m going to attempt replacing them any way. I don’t have a way of testing them but I figure for $10 I’ll give it a try. I’ll update after I get it done.
Randal
Awesome blog post! Thanks for doing this, you saved me a bundle of cash!
Tim
TY for posting this…saved me troubleshooting…took me longer to dig out the replacement caps out of my parts bin than to actually repair my monitor..lol
Tim
oh yeah…i only had to replace 2 caps…and i used 1000 uf caps instead of the 820 uf.
dibs
This article and $3.82 of capacitors (x3) later and my monitor is back to it’s old form and I no longer need to worry about finding epileptic friends slumped at the desk. Thankyou!
Blinky
I also Replaced 820uFs with 1000uF and 25V (just what I had on hand) and 330uF with 470uF 25V, just because they were available local at my hobby shop. Nothing beats being able to save what I was about to throw out. Thanks for the great tip.
Craigvs
Thanks, worked well.
FlipperMan
Maplin (UK) have sent me 35v instead of 25v…….will this blow the monitor ?
FlipperMan
Maplin (UK) have sent me 35v instead of 25v…….will this blow the monitor ?
FlipperMan
Well, first time I’ve ever soldering anything in my life and it appears to be working well with 1000uf and 35v capacitors. They were 37p each and I bought a little soldering kit for £14.99. Monitor working like a dream now – thanks for the post !
Sdavids5670
I decided to go the route of ordering a replacement circuit board because I don’t have a solder iron or any experience soldering and the difference in price between the board and the replacement capacitors made the decision simple. However, I failed to document the four cables connecting the LCD to the circuit board and since they don’t appear to be keyed by shape, I have no idea which way to connect them. Do you know where I can find this information?
FlipperMan
BTW – these seem fine (35V). I must have done something with the screen when removing though as I have 1 vertical line of ‘failed’ pixels on the screen. Doesnt really affect usage.
FlipperMan
Had n email notify from Sdavids5670 as follows:
“I decided to go the route of ordering a replacement circuit board because I don’t have a solder iron or any experience soldering and the difference in price between the board and the replacement capacitors made the decision simple. However, I failed to document the four cables connecting the LCD to the circuit board and since they don’t appear to be keyed by shape, I have no idea which way to connect them. Do you know where I can find this information?”
I did take a photo of the board before removal so I knew where the leads were. Looking at the board, the top right connector – the rhs lead is the white and black wires – the LHS of that connector is the pink and white on my pic. The LHS connector – this is reversed – the rhs lead on that connector is pink and white lead and the lhs of that connector is a black and blue(?) wire.
I’ve got the pics still if they help.
FlipperMan
Luvaerospace
FlipperMan, it should not matter. The voltage is the max voltage the capacitor can handle. However the uf rating does matter.
http://vrillusions.com/ Todd Eddy
May want to mention the part numbers. Found them on another site but since this was the first one I found in google I’ll post it here as well. The 820uf is 667-EEU-FC1E821 and 330uf is 667-ECA-1EHG331. Just punch those numbers in the search form on mouser to go right to them. I just ordered them today so no first hand experience with them but look like high quality capacitors.
Jhammy49
Awesome! Took about 10 seconds to see that I had 5 bad caps. Took less than 24hrs for the replacement parts to show up from Mouser.com and now my monitor is back on for the first time in months! It was collecting dust in the garage! The only issue with the post was lack of part numbers but I quickly found them in Todd Eddy’s post.
Thanks!
TDD
I hope you’re still checking this blog…
I’m confused by these pictures… They don’t seem to match the cable placements in the picture above. Above, the red cable is always on the bottom, but in these pictures, the red cable is always on the inside. Could you please list which is which? Thanks!
TDD
I hope you’re still checking this blog…
I’m confused by these pictures… They don’t seem to match the cable placements in the picture above. Above, the red cable is always on the bottom, but in these pictures, the red cable is always on the inside. Could you please list which is which? Thanks!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701191293 Darrin DeCosta
Used your instructions today to repair my Samsung monitor. It works great! I tried to learn from the comments below and unplugged as little as possible to make re-assembly easier. Thanks!