RIP beloved GD245HQ ☠️?

In 2010 i bought the Acer GD245HQ for 430€. The main reason for me at that time was gaming performance especially a high refresh rate. It also works with Nvidia 3D Vision and shipped with a pair of 3D glasses - remember the 3D hype? I actually used these glasses like a handful of times.

Anyway the monitor served me well for many many years with almost daily usage. Even when my usecase changed from gaming to productivity the monitor worked just great. I was so used to the 120Hz refresh rate that it felt wrong when i had to use a display with less hertz.

That is why i was sad (not disappointed though - this thing is 12 years old now) when it stopped working yesterday. No picture, no sound not a single LED light would work on the monitor. I decided, that i had nothing to lose and probably must buy a new one anyway so i opened the case and looked at the inners of the hardware.

let’s have a look inside 🔍

My initial plan was to check for power coming from the AC port. I started by removing the stand…

…and separating the panel from the case.

Before i could fully access the inners i had to disconnect the cable that runs to the controls and indicator LED.

After that the front can be lifted and i could see the inner case which holds the main circuit boards.

There are 3 cables that run from the front panel to the boards - these need to be disconnected and after lifting the metal straps I was able to flip the case and access the circuit boards

I removed the 8 screws that mounted the boards to the case and voila. The heart of the monitor basically consists of two boards. The component on the right side of the picture is the power and invertor board while the left part is controlling the interfaces, the two boards are connected via a cable at P003 (on the schematics).

The AC port is located on the power supply board, this is where i started measuring with multimeter and checking the power delivery. So far everything was looking fine.

I check power at various places on the power supply board and everything seems normal - that’s why i started checking the interface board and its components. Therefore, i got the schematics manual of the GD245HQ.

full schematics

G966A 🧐

I started investigating the schematics document and found that the core components for controlling power stream are the I204 and I207 (Page 11 in the datasheet). These are low-dropout regulators labeled G966A-25A.

full datasheet

A common issue with these types of components is that the quiescent current which ensures for the internal circuitry to work properly can depend on factors like the ambient temperature, especially if the hardware is not brand new anymore. As the temperature rises, the quiescent current goes up as well. If the temperature is too low and the quality of the LDO is already degraded the output appears to be dead. In this monitor the LDO doesn’t have to operate continously - in this idle state it still draws a small amount of quiescent current in order to be “ready” when load is presented. When the montior is powered off (not in standby) the power loss increases and functionality of the LDO cannot be “re-enabled” without increasing the ambient temperature.

I used a hair dryer and heated both the G966A-25A (I207 and I204) directly. I tried to concentrate the air flow as good as possible to not damage other parts on the circuit board. After ~14 seconds the G966A passed the signal, the power LED turned blue and the monitor started as usual.

I marked the location of the G966As on the case and reassembled the hardware parts. For now the monitor works fine. I did some tests with powering it off and killing power completely, everything is back to normal. I once again had the issue when the monitor was out of power for a while and the temperature around the G966A-25A dropped under a certain threshold. I needed to use the hair dryer again for ~15 seconds (through the case) and the monitor came back to life. If i leave it on standby it works fine all the time now.

I may get some completely new G966As (https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?&SearchText=G966A) and replace them on the board, but before that i need to level-up my soldering skills. That’s also a point i checked during my hardware investigation. The soldering points of the G966A were all fine (also before applying the heat) so this was probably not the fix. But a replacement definitely seems to be a more sustainable solution than blowing at my electronics with hot air.

If you have similar issues go check for the parts inside your hardware, maybe a hair dryer can save your monitor as well 🤞