Can an unstable HT overclock damage a monitor?

[FauxisFox]

Hey yall,

I had a stable overclock running for about a year or so, but had to reset the CMOS because I pigheadedly disabled USB 2.0 for the UEFI. I recreated the settings as best I could, but after testing it with Final Fantasy 15, I got a BSOD with "k_mode_exception" or some such. That, I sort of expected, but what I hadn't expected was one of my monitors suddenly cycling through solid colors. Some smoke came out of the top vent and now the backlight won't stay on for more than a second, so I assume it was probably some capacitors. I'm quite certain the cause of the BSOD was a HT clock that was too high.

The question is this: did the system crash damage the monitor, or was it on its way out? (For reference, the monitor in question was a Vizio VMM26 from 2008 connected by DVI-D and the GPU ports are perfectly fine.)

 

[Eximo]

Were you overclocking the monitor? Or you are talking about HyperTransport?

Ten years is a decent lifespan for a monitor. Probably just blew up. I can't imagine any bleedthrough or anything from the computer (the data lines) that would blow the monitor up. Maybe the sudden loss of load on the PSU caused a spike on the AC line that tipped it over the edge?

 

[FauxisFox]

Were you overclocking the monitor? Or you are talking about HyperTransport?

Ten years is a decent lifespan for a monitor. Probably just blew up. I can't imagine any bleedthrough or anything from the computer (the data lines) that would blow the monitor up. Maybe the sudden loss of load on the PSU caused a spike on the AC line that tipped it over the edge?

Yeah, wasn't overclocking the monitor at all and HT is in reference to HyperTransport. It may be possible that there was a spike in the +5 volt line across the DVI? The other monitor suffered no such issues, but it was connected to a DisplayPort, which doesn't provide power to the monitor. I'd like to think that my PSU is better than that though. Otherwise, my USB devices would be damaged.

 

[Eximo]

An interesting thought. Sudden unloading of some 5V supplies could spike up fairly high, especially if it was one of the PSUs that gets is 5V from a DC to DC convertor. Doesn't speak too well about the protection they built around the DVI port in that case, though after ten years, maybe it was worn out.

Decent way to find out is to see where the blown capacitor/component was hooked up to. Also could be a simple repair.

My brother once got a pile of dead 19" 4:3 LCDs from work they were throwing out. He was able to repair about 11 of them with a simple re-cap / regulator replacement.