Acer S231HL - Melted power connector

About an hour ago one my my two side-by-side Acer S231HL monitors flickered, then smoked, then went out. Following the smoke and burning smell led me to the power connector. I quickly unplugged from the wall, and pulled the melted connector from the monitor. The metal barrel is now permanently fused to the back of the monitor, and the end of the power cord is just two metal prongs- everything melted away. I am glad I was here. Who knows what would have happened if power remained applied. Now I am concerned about the safety of the second monitor. Has anyone else had this issue?

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billsey

That's not a common failure, but sure can be scary! How old are your monitors? A catastrophic failure like that has to be in the connection between the power socket and the power board, with something getting a really bad short. Anywhere downstream from that and it'd have blown a fuse instead...

WannaMonitor

Manufacture Date: December 2011. In researching these forums, it appears I am not the only one that experienced this type of failure.

billsey

So it took more than nine years to fail... At least you got a good run out of it. You could open it up to see what failed to cause the short, but any way you go you're looking at buying a new monitor to replace it.

WannaMonitor

Agreed. Inside looks very clean. No obvious shorts, no puffy/leaking capacitors, no diodes blown. There is even a fusable link that was still in place. The damage/melting seems to be isolated to the plug housing (barrel connector) itself. Perhaps the barrel itself shorted... (although I've never seen it happen before...)

If I was motivated, I would desolder the capacitors off the main board and see if any of them failed short- If one of them was holding up/filtering the input power rail, and failed as a short, I could see the power plug melting.... (It would be easier to determine with a schematic

)

BTW, the panel inside is an LG.

MABos

Had same issue this morning. S231HL. Manufactured 09/2011. Power connection hot partially melted smoke and smell.

billsey

Sounds like a similar issue as the original poster had. Time for a replacement.

MABos

Just now power connector of a second monitor melted and smoked. Connector ejected out due to heat/smoke almost burnt a piece of paper nearby. Monitors would stop working after some time but they should not stop working this way! Acer should look into this.