Has anyone replaced CCFL lamps in a 2509m 25" LCD Monitor.

[lzym3n]

My 2509m 25” LCD monitor is intermittently flickering / blinking when turned on.

Of course I’m 3 months past the warranty date (2yrs Costco) and HP Customer support confirmed it is a hardware issue, but offered no solution for me to replace or repair.  They said I'd have to buy a new one. 

I found the following instructions to open the monitor and I was able to pull out both pairs of lamps.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/productdata/Countries/_MultiCountry/disassemb...

I see one of them does seem to be burned out or at least on its way (buzzes and flickers)

Has anyone had success replaced the CCFL lamps in a 2509m before?

Not looking to spend another $250-$300 for a new 25" monitor.

I would appreciate any insight.  Cost, supplier, part number

Thanks in advance for any insight.

[skasucks478]

LOL! I don't mean to laugh, but I when I came home today I turned on my computer to find my 2509m doing the same thing. I'm 6 months past my warranty through Costco. I will keep an eye on this post and let you know if I find anything in my research.

[lzym3n]

Updated 7/23/2012.
I took a closer look at the CCFL. One of the wires soldered to the end of the lamp was just hanging on by a thread. Both wires came completely off when I tried to inspect them. So decided to re-solder both and it appears to have worked. I’m a bit concerned because the end cap was destroyed in the process but I used some tape and we’ll see how it goes. I expect I’ll still need to replace it at some point, but at least it seems to be working again…No flickering.

I did find a site that looks like it would have the parts I need and some tutorials. http://www.ccflwarehouse.com

But for now I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[HobbyRepairMan]

To all who have had flickering, flutter, dark screen on either side or both,

I have had the privilege of having the same problem with my HP 2509m monitor.  In my case, there was no power

to the monitor.

I took it apart and was able to troubleshoot the problem with the help from another person in another forum.

when I had finished repairing it, I put it semi-back together for testing. the repair worked, but It was darker

on one side of the screen. If you have ever seen a greyscale scale, that is what it looks like.

I decided to pull the CCFL lamps out and all of them had severe burn marks on the plastic retainers (not the silicon end caps). The lamps themselves have the burn marks inside the tubes at the ends. This is typical for florescent lamps when

they are about to fail or have failed.

I ordered  all four lamps from CCFLwarehouse.

The one thing that I saw upon closer inspection of the low voltage wire ( the thinner wire ) was that the wire was also

burned at the connection point on the lamp.  Because the printed lettering that tells the type of wire is so small, I had to use a magnifier to see the gauge of the wire.

on the sleeve It has : 300v , AWG 26 (or it could be AWG 28). I ended up buying a small roll of AWG24 and AWG26. the AWG26 seems to be almost Identical in size so I believe the the actual wire size is AWG28.

I spliced about 3 inches of new wire to the old wire and used very small heat shrink tubing. I soldered the ends of the wire to the lamps. I plugged in the lamps into the power board for testing. They worked perfectly and are extremely bright!

there are a couple of ways to deal with this when it comes to lamp replacement::

1. send the lamps in to ccflwarehouse and have them completely restore them. the cost will depend on the size of

lamps and how many but they will be professionally done and at a reasonable price if you plan to keep your monitor

for a long time. they replace the lamps, wires and connectors. you can find the info on www.CCFLwarehouse.com

2. You can order the lamps and DIY. this is actually a lot of fun and you get lots of hands on experience. CAUTION:

these lamps are very fragile and MUST be handled with extreme care. So,  no coffee or anything that will

make you jittery during the process. buy a pair of antistatic gloves :

http://www.frys.com/product/6932567?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

This is the pair I picked up from Frys Electronics but I am sure you can find them at other electronic retailers.

My hand is approx. 7.5 inches from the top of the middle finger to bottom edge of palm. I use the large size and fits just

a little loose but that's OK.

Basically you want to keep your skin from touching the lamps because oils from your fingers will be left behind on the lamps and could cause them to fail sooner and you don't want any smudges to cause imperfections on the screen when it's lit.

You will also want to order the end caps because  I can almost guarantee you will have to destroy the old ones just

to get them off.  I was able to save three of them by careful cutting with xacto knife. the forth one I placed it back on and used tub and tile silicone to keep it in place albeit, with a whole day needed for curing.

In my opinion save yourself the headaches and wasted time and purchase them from CCFLwarehouse when you order your new lamps. they will not look like the old ones, but they will do the job.

Now, for the Board repair:

I will do a new post with pics and guide.

[lzym3n]

HobbyRepairMan, Thanks so much for posting. 

Luckily for me, my repair job from a year ago is still holding in there,

but it is nice to know the tubes from www.CCFLwarehouse.com are a good option.

[rickc123]

did you do this repair and do you have any picutres that will help? I will be trying to send in the lamps to CCFL warehouse

thanks

[mznatnat]

So my monitor started flickering like crazy.  The left side of the screen is dimmer than the right side so I suppose that's where the bulbs have burned out.  I just need to know how many bulbs I need to order.  I need to replace ALL bulbs so how many are there? 2 or 4?

Oh and FYI .... HP support was of no help AT ALL!  They told me to just get another monitor!!!! That was the first thing out of the chick's mouth..... Its like they want you to keep spending money left and right.

[lzym3n]

mznatnat, sorry to hear about your monitor.  Unfortunately it seems to be all to common. 

Browsing the other posts about the 2509m is probably worth the time to eliminate all other possibilities, but I'm guessing you probably already did that.  (Plug it into another computer.  Plug a different monitor into the computer to eliminate possible video card / driver issues.)

To answer your question though, if I recall correctly, it is 2 pairs of tubes.

The http://www.ccflwarehouse.com site has the complete monitor DIY repair kits page where you enter the ake/model and size.  http://www.ccflwarehouse.com/comodiyrekit.html
It also shows that it will come with 4 CCFL (2 pairs of tubes)

Personally, I would follow the link in the prior post to the disassembly instructions before I ordered anything.
That way in case you get in there and something else breaks or you find that maybe it isn’t really the bulbs (Don’t see anything obviously wrong with them), you don’t throw more money away.

In my case (maybe I just got lucky) it was just a wiring thing that I was able to fix and not the bulbs.
My repair is still going strong (knock on wood).

Good luck with yours.

[mznatnat]

I am going to order the Deluxe DIY Monitor Repair Kit from the CCFLWarehouse.... I know for a fact its not my drivers and its the bulbs themselves because there is no way in hell would my video drivers work one day and the next they just start making my monitor go haywire.  It just sounds kind of crazy to me.  The only reason I don't want to pull it apart first is because right now it still kind of works... it flickers but it works.... if I pull it apart I have a huge chance of doing something stupid and losing my monitor all together.  I don't have any spare monitors so I'm stuck with what I have.  

I wanna get the Deluxe Kit because it comes with a soldering gun and I might need it.

[lzym3n]

mznatnat, If you get a chance, please post with they final results.  Good luck!!!