Thursday 31 October 2013

Fix for Apple Cinema Display power supply failure

My 20" Cinema Display failed, the LED giving the short long short flashing error message with the white LED. I had read on the net of a solution which involved messing about with tiny bits of tape to isolate the centre pin of the connector to the screen, and reckoned that repair would not last more than a few insertions of the connector before it would fail again.

I took apart the power supply by sawing through the shell on the three clear edges carefully
so I could then crack it open.

After lifting out the board I removed the two screws holding the internal connector and on turning it upside down noticed that the centre pin was not isolated due to a surface mount resistor in there connecting to one of the other terminals. Follwing the idea of isolating the centre terminal, I desoldered the resistor, and bingo! the screen works perfectly now, and it is a proper fix.