Smoke from the monitor

Ok, Actually this concerns my brothers LCD. A little while ago he asked for some help because said monitor had momentarily flickered (In a very minor way) at which point a small puff of smoke emerged from the back, and the monitor went back to normal.

Now of course step one was to turn off the monitor. I haven't opened it up yet, but noting the accumulation of dust on the backside of the monitor, I'm guessing that the event may have been caused by an accumulation of dust on the internals, including enough conductive dust that it triggered a momentary short circuit causing the flicker and smoke.

So, considering the recession and all, I'm naturally looking for an option to repair rather than replace. If my admittedly non-professional supposition to the cause is right, the carefully opening the case and using canned air to clear the dust off the internals (After letting it cool off and all the smoke clear) might prove all that's necessary - since the incident didn't appear to cause any real loss of functionality to the monitor. But as I said, my supposition is not a professional one, so I'm hoping that someone with more experience than me might be able to point out anything that hasn't occurred to me.

Thanks in advance.

there are parts that hold electric charges inside a monitor, dont open it without knowing what not to touch.

well it's an LCD, so it's not as dangerous as a CRT. I'd unplug it for at least 24 hours. Then carefully open it up. Clean all the dust out, and look for where the fire happened. Make sure there's no hazard with continued use from the damage.

Agreed.
TFT's still have high-voltage circuitry powering the backlight.
Leave opening it up to professionals.

Get a can of compressed air and see what you can do with that.


Oh, and whatever you do, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES use a vacuum cleaner to get the dust out. The static charge a vacuum cleaner builds up during use wcan easily fry the electronics.

Do not try and blow dust out from the outside, you could just create a problem.

Unfortunately it is not likely to have been dust that caused the puff of smoke, it could have been from a filtering, regulation or protection circuit.

Do not take the cover off if you do not know what you are doing, you are likely to cause more damage than good. If you cannot get it serviced try and locate a friend that has skills in servicing electronic equipment and see if they can take a look.