Dell monitor 2209WAF problem
 

I've had this monitor for about 6 years and use it exclusively for photography as it has an ips panel and the viewing angles are fantastic. It just started acting up where at different times of the day it will suddenly dim in brightness and then within minutes pop back up to the correct brightness. Anyone have this happen to an LCD computer monitor? I had it apart and all the electrolytic capacitors looked ok. There are only three boards... the power supply/main board, inverter board and a usb board. I guess I'm going to need to wait until it fails further before I can do any voltage tests.

CCFL Lamps can do that toward end of life. Check regulation/ripple on the power supply feeding the inverter.

Will do, thanks for the tip. Will one or more failing CCFL lamps cause the whole array to dim?

At the connection feeding the inverter, the ripple looks to be a fraction of a volt (a Fluke 77 gives me .125V though at the scope it looks more like .5V peak to peak) at about 2.9Mhz with a dc output of 24.06V.

Now, about one hour later, the ripple is more like .05V on the Fluke and looks reduced on the scope as well. The screen just did it's dimming thing and the 24.06V reading stayed the same during the dimming as well as the ripple voltage. Within less than a minute, it popped to full brightness again.

When the monitor dims, I don't see a color shift or pinkish glow, just a reduction in brightness.

I had to comment... There is an acronym in the "Home Theater" TV/stereo hobby, that is "WAF", which means "Wife Acceptance Factor". In other words, will a man's wife agree to having a huge TV and stereo system with a pile of remote controls in their home?

So, the title of this topic "Dell monitor 2209WAF problem" looked like "Dell monitor 2209 (space) WAF problem" at first, and I thought, "This man's wife does not like his Dell monitor?". :)

LOL, no it really is the model number, 2209WAf to be exact.

I wasn't aware of that acronym though now I'll probably chuckle every time my wife complains when she has a difficult time turning on/off the surround sound amp with the DISH remote. :)

I guess I'm going to look for a used 2209 on eBay. I could try and replace the inverter board though most likely it is a ccfl problem. I dismantled the entire unit down to the panel and discovered the hidden t-con board though I can't seem to find a way to dismantle the panel to get at the backlights. The thing is built like a tank. Oh well, I got six years of use out of it with 7200 hours of panel time... can't complain though I'll probably whine. :)