Dead (cheap) monitor

Several years ago we got a cheap LG LCD monitor for one of the PCs. Now it died - wouldn't turn on no more. As this specific PC is pretty critical for our operations I immediately went and bought a new (also cheap-ish) monitor and just moved the old one to a corner, pending examination - either repair (not worth the trouble, really, considering the price and hours we already got out of it) or waste disposal (more likely).

Then, one day I had finished whatever I was doing and had some time until a customer dropped by. The time was long enough so I didn't feel like just browsing the net, but short enough that I didn't have time to start anything serious either. So I picked this monitor up to see if I could do something. I expected the reason to be the usual - dead capacitors.

The construction was typical; bezel was attached with nothing but clips, and I wasn't really that careful with them so unsurprisingly bezel was scratched at points. But it came off easily. It turned out that panel and electronics inside weren't attached to rear cover either - all the plastic just dropped off.

But wait, there's more! The main electronics cover wasn't attached to anything either - after taking covers off it, too, just lifted out! Well, after taking out backlight wires. Damn, this really is the cheapest construction I've seen yet. 

Insides of the electronics cover. Left is power board, and that tiny, about credit card-sized board is the actual driver board. I was expecting a paperback book-sized board so this came as a surprise.

There wasn't anything obviously broken either. The fuse (grey tube next to power connector) was ok and all the caps seemed fine so I was thinking what to do next when I ran out of time - the customer I was expecting arrived. Which also is the reason I don't have more (better) photos of it.

Considering the current value of this monitor (maybe few tens of euros in working condition) I decided it was not worth further troubleshooting and just quickly re-assembled it (carelessly, so all the parts aren't sitting right) until I could dispose it properly.