Repairing a 1999 LCD Apple Studio Display

[mectojic]

What a beautiful LCD! This one is blueberry, 1024x768, and designed to match the B&W. They are pretty darn rare these days.

I acquired mine a few weeks ago. It was working perfectly until one day, this black line of dead pixels appeared... and then a second line appeared right next to it a few weeks later.

Sadly there is not even an iFixit teardown of this model, so I don't even know how to get inside this thing (though I was able to remove the outer casing which had some screws and pull-tabs.)

Anyone know what might be causing the problem of dead lines on an LCD? As I said, it was working perfectly until this happened.

 

[mectojic]

Here's a photo of the problem:

 

[mectojic]

Something else I discovered, which is interesting:

I don’t think the lines are necessarily dead. Because when the screen first turns on and warms up, the dead lines briefly show up as white lines, before going black.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

This must be pure coincidence, but I had the same artifact appear on my ibook g4 in the same place. At first I did not notice it because it was right at the top of the dock and would not appear until the desktop loaded (not present on white/gray apple splash screen). Anyhow, in my instance, the line went away when I reinstalled Leopard on the machine and has not come back since - this was around mid 2020 and I have used the ibook g4 consistently since then. Maybe connect the monitor to another mac to see if it carries over?

You can kind of see the artifact along the top of the dock in this picture.

 

[mectojic]

This must be pure coincidence, but I had the same artifact appear on my ibook g4 in the same place. At first I did not notice it because it was right at the top of the dock and would not appear until the desktop loaded (not present on white/gray apple splash screen). Anyhow, in my instance, the line went away when I reinstalled Leopard on the machine and has not come back since - this was around mid 2020 and I have used the ibook g4 consistently since then. Maybe connect the monitor to another mac to see if it carries over?
View attachment 1978467
You can kind of see the artifact along the top of the dock in this picture.

Sadly mine is carrying over on any device- and it shows up when turning the monitor on just alone.

 

[velocityg4]

Could be a faulty TCon board or internal cabling from the board to the LCD. Try cleaning the connections with a residue free Contact Cleaner for electronics. Use this stuff outdoors as it is quite nasty. Also wear gloves and goggles.

Check the board for signs of capacitor leakage. Like residue under the capacitors. A lot of small caps won't show any visible sign of failure though.

 

[mectojic]

Could be a faulty TCon board or internal cabling from the board to the LCD. Try cleaning the connections with a residue free Contact Cleaner for electronics. Use this stuff outdoors as it is quite nasty. Also wear gloves and goggles.

Check the board for signs of capacitor leakage. Like residue under the capacitors. A lot of small caps won't show any visible sign of failure though.

Thanks for the tips. If it was capacitor leakage, what could I do then?

I don't know much about this, but since it started with no dead lines, then one, and now a second right next to it, I wonder if the problem might spread again.

 

[mectojic]

Oh and of course, the other problem is that I can't get to the board right now, since I don't know how to disassemble it. I'm scared that I'll break the brittle plastic tabs or something.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Oh and of course, the other problem is that I can't get to the board right now, since I don't know how to disassemble it. I'm scared that I'll break the brittle plastic tabs or something.

Hmm, well assuming you figure out how to get it open, I’d look at reseating the ribbon cable connecting the video port to the lcd before so start replacing any parts. If that doesn’t fix it, I’d still suspect the cable and look for a replacement which will be very difficult considering the rarity of such monitors. Good luck on your repair.

 

[weckart]

Try asking on MacOS9lives, Applefritter, 68kMLA or any of the other vintage Mac sites.