Sony PVM-20L5 burning smell

[schadenfreude]

Hey friends, I have been enjoying my PVM over the past few weeks (well, other than composite quality, but I'll let that pass), mostly playing games in S-Video and YPbPr.

Then I finally got the right cables to test the RGB signal quality, so I hooked up my Genesis and began playing. At some point the phone rang, so I paused the game and left the room to take the call. However, when I returned, there was this rank smell in the game like burning acid. I tried my best to assume it wasn't coming from the TV, but I traced the smell to the vents on the top. I shut it off and have since confirmed (after the smell cleared the room) that the smell originates from within the television.

I decided to be adventurous by opening the system and noticed a suspicious capacitor. For one, it's sitting at an odd angle when I would expect it to be parallel to the components next to it, but more interestingly, the shell appears to be cracked open with some charring at the bottom (this picture was taken after I re-assembled the TV, but you can see the light-blue capacitor I'm describing on the left-hand side of the image):



Now, does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do? First, I'm not certain this is the root cause of the smell; is there a great way to determine the source of the smell? Obviously I don't want to get my face too close to the circuitry while the case is open and the unit is powered on!

As for a fix, I am wondering if it might be as "easy" as de-soldering that possibly dead capacitor and replacing it with a new one. Does anyone have any tips on doing this (or not doing it!), or maybe links to the PVM's service manual?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Zets13]

Well, you could try turning it on briefly while it is opened up and watching it to see if something is visibly smoking and therefore likely what is producing the odor. Also, if something looks to be badly damaged, it could very well be what is causing the odor.

[kamiboy]

Replacing dead components is dead easy as long as you know your way around a soldering iron.

First thing to do is to identify the type and specifications of said component. Then you can find a replacement on eBay or something.

If doing so is beyond your skills then you had better find a technician.

[schadenfreude]

Cool, thanks guys! I desoldered the capacitor, ordered the correct part (a few of them just in case), and will solder one in once they arrive. I'll update this thread with results!

[schadenfreude]

Hmm...well, my repair was interesting, to say the least. I'll recount below a timeline of my experience.

• — I received the PVM and noticed that the outside looked broken.
  
  — While waiting for my SCART to BNC cables to arrive in the mail, I tested composite, S-Video, and YPbPr component, confirming that all of them worked, despite the obvious shipping damage to the case.
  
  — Finally, my SCART to BNC cables arrived! I hooked up the Genesis, flipped on RGB mode, started playing, and then smelled a faint burning smell, plus the picture was acting a little jittery. I turned off the PVM, waited a few days, opened it up, and found that blown capacitor shown in my first post.
  
  — I desoldered it, ordered some replacement ones, and soldered one of them in. I then turned on the monitor, waited a few minutes to see if something would explode, but nothing happened. Then I played some games using S-Video and component, and verified that nothing was wrong (no flickering, no burning smell, etc.)
  
  — Then I decided to go all the way and test RGB. I hooked up my goods, switched into RGB, and immediately heard a popping noise. I turned off the monitor, checked the circuitry in the back, and saw that my new capacitor had blown! This made me conclude that something's wrong with the RGB pathway in this monitor, so I should just use component instead (I have a SCART to component converter and it gives the same quality picture as RGB from what I could tell). I made sure to switch to a non-component-RGB line before turning off the monitor.
  
  — So I desoldered this next blown capacitor, put in the new one, slapped everything together, and turned on the monitor. It turned on to Line A, but the picture quality was horrendous — the screen had this bizarre spider-webbing pattern on it — and I could hear this loud whinnying noise coming from the circuitry. I decided to turn it off, and as I did, I heard this loud pope and saw smoke blow out of a transformer. Uh oh!
  
  — I put the monitor back together and haven't turned the poor thing on since.

I'm thinking that all of this started from a burnt transistor or surface-mount resistor. Here's the back of the board (C2538 was where the blown capacitor is mounted):



I suppose that the surface-mount resistor and or the transistors there are the real culprits; the resistor looks like ground zero for the charring, and the solder on the legs of the transistors looks dryer than Graham County.

I don't feel like pursuing a fix here because the list of parts is maddening (a transformer, a surface-mount resistor I will most likely fail to solder correctly, and some transistors), and there's no guarantee it would work. If I could purchase that daughter board by itself, I would!

I am quite sad that I pushed the "RGB" pathway so much; I feel that, had I avoided switching into RGB mode, the monitor would have worked fine — or at least it was working fine for the many hours I used it prior to switching into RGB mode.

I'm quite sad, but I'm not unwilling to try to get another one. There are none within reasonable driving distance of me, however, and after this experience, I will have difficulty trusting shippers. If you friends have any suggestions for me, please let me know. Thanks!

[kamiboy]

I bet you can get a spare daughterboard somewhere. I've seen PVM/BVM spare parts show up on ebay from time to time.