Warning: That one capacitor took me 4 hours to find and it was just sitting there obvious

I had this monitor that kept flickering after it warmed up. Spent 3 hours chasing cold solder joints on the main board, checking resistors, even replaced a voltage regulator that looked fine. Turns out it was a 25V cap near the backlight connector that had a tiny bulge on the top I kept missing because it was covered by a bit of glue. Four hours gone just because I didn't clean the board first before inspecting it. Now I always wipe down boards with alcohol before I even start testing. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on a part they walked past 6 times?

2 comments

2 Comments

harris.emma1mo ago

@xena_murphy Literally same with the cold joint thing, I feel your pain. That whole "wasted afternoon on something obvious" hits so close to home. I had a DVD player once that wouldn't power on, spent like 5 hours checking the main fuse, the bridge rectifier, even the transformer windings with my multimeter. Turns out there was a tiny crack in a solder joint on the power switch itself, right where the wire met the board. I must have looked at that switch a dozen times but never actually wiggled it or traced the circuit from the switch to the input. Finally I just started poking at everything with a plastic stick and the unit flickered to life. So frustrating when you think you're being thorough but you're actually just skipping past the real issue. Makes you wanna start every repair with a magnifying glass and a clean board from now on.

xena_murphy1mo ago

Ngl, I spent 3 hours hunting a cold joint that was literally right next to the power input.