Tidbits

My latest project has been putting together PCs for those that need it. I think if someone is still running a 486, they desperately need an upgrade. So after my long pursue of collecting scrap PC parts and rebuilding them, I am finally done and completed my last PC this Monday. But apparently that was not enough for me.

We have a Sony 17″ monitor sitting around because it’s broken. After no response to my offer as scrap parts, I decided to take apart the monitor myself, hoping that I can simply find and replace a burnt fuse and vola; you have a working monitor. The monitor is broken because it does not turn on when I hit the power button but instead we hear this clicking sound coming from the monitor and this caused when I changed the resolution to the monitor.

As always, things doesn’t always go our way in life, and I now understand why people charge so much for labor in fixing things. First off, we had to get the monitor cap off. That in itself took forever and took lots of our energy. At the end, brut force and might did the trick and we were able to take the cap off. Then, we had to take another metal cap off. That also too some time and we also had to make sure we don’t get electrocuted. With parts stripped and our study room looking like a war zone, we finally begin to examine the broken monitor. We begin to look at the board and try to determine where the clicking sound is coming from. We were able to locate the general vicinity of the sound but without any tools to check the voltage and solder (had we wanted to), there was not much we can do.

Searching on Google for the part that might be causing the problem, I found that it appears to be a transformer. This reminds me that I had once broken a transformer in our furnace when trying to install a new thermometer. So my conclusion to this entire ordeal is:

1. Sony TV/monitors are bad. I have had experiences with a few Sonys and they always break before their lifetime.

2. I should have been an engineer. My curiosity to take things apart is crazy. I think Kenny must be wondering what has he married into…

3. Maybe I can get someone to lend me their solder kit and try to take apart some stuff on the board. But then again, I can do that with some old modems lying around or Kenny’s Archos Jukebox 6000 that I managed to break and
stripp apart for the HD.

So this is how I spend my weekdays. Take things apart - either destorying them or making them into a brand spanking new machine.