Dead LCD Screen revived for < 1€

Last week, when I came home I wanted to quickly check something on the internet. So I walked to my office, switched on my computer and the screen and ... waited ... 

While the computer ran the usual noises and beeps the screen stayed black...

What do you do when the screen fails? Right... 

check the powerplug,

 then 

switch it off an on

then

check the video connectors...

All the basic stuff failed... so next Step

Warranty?!? -> screen is too old .. no more warranty

So, I went to my usual computer store and asked what the repair would cost. The estimation of my favorite vendor was, "45€ for sending the screen in to Samsung + 15€ - 50€ for the parts that need replaced + 50€ - 100€ for the time some worker needs to repair the screen".

R i g h t !!! 

My luck will produce the Worst Case: I pay more for the repair than I would for a new screen. 

End of story. Screen is dead. Thanks God I got a 2nd one on my desk. 

O R . . . m a y b e   N O T !!!

There are many cases where I am way too nosy. Then I start collecting information to try and figure out what is wrong and why it is. 

So I asked Google about "Samsung Syncmaster 245B screen stays black".

I did get a couple of links that listed comments, threads from people in blogs and forums who had a similar problem.

First thread mentioned a set of probably blown capacitators. They would be easily to find so I opened up the screen and had a look. No luck there though, didn't find a blown one. 

Next thread said something about "broken resistors". The post even pointed out 3 resistors that are often broken because they were chosen too cheap and are not really fit to do their task. To check out this possible source of the screens death I needed to unpack my meter from our packing cases of our last move. 

S T R I K E !!!

One of the three resitors was broken indeed. So today I went to a store that has all kinds of electronic parts waiting to be sold. As those resistors were said to not beeing fit for their job, I chose to replace all three of them instead of only the broken one by a set of 3 68 Ohm resistors that can process a higher power demand (1W instead of the original resistors 0.5W). 

I reconnected all connectors and closed the screen again, hooked it up to my computer and...

TADAAA! It works again.

Well giving it to the repair center would have cost me 100 - 200€. 

Repairing it myself cost me 90 cents (Theoretically I could have done it for 30cents, if I had only replaced the broken resistor). Well putting an avg. hourly cost of 30€ if I would calculate my own work time, the self repair would cost 60.90€. But as I still like to spend time on such problems .. just for the fun of it, I keep thinking I repaired my screen for 90 cents. And the time I've spent???  Well I'd call that taking a recreational timeout. 

Wann im Jahr ist Ostersonntag? (When is easter sunday?)

- Wann ist Ostersonntag?

- Warum?

- Damit ich Feiertage bestimmen kann.

- Wo brauchst Du es?

- In meiner Excel-Datei... Zeitnachweise und so...

... hat mich ein Kollege kürzlich gefragt. Ich sagte ihm, er finde die Lösung zu seinem Problem unter "Gaußsche Osterformel" bei de.Wikipedia.org

Da ihn die Ausführungen dort mehr oder weniger verwirrten, gab ich ihm einfach die für den gregorianischen Kalender passende Excel-Formel. Dabei ist A2 die Referenz auf die Zelle, in welcher die Jahreszahl des zu berechnenden Ostersonntag-Termins steht:

= DATUM(A2;3;(21 + (REST( 19*(REST(A2;19)) + (15 + GANZZAHL( (3*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - GANZZAHL( (8*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) - (GANZZAHL(GANZZAHL( ((REST( 19*(REST(A2;19)) + (15 + GANZZAHL( (3*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - GANZZAHL( (8*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) + (REST(A2;19))) /11 ) / 29)))+(7 - REST((21 + (REST( 19*(REST(A2;19)) + (15 + GANZZAHL( (3*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - GANZZAHL( (8*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) - (GANZZAHL(GANZZAHL( ((REST( 19*(REST(A2;19)) + (15 + GANZZAHL( (3*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - GANZZAHL( (8*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) + (REST(A2;19))) /11 ) / 29))) - (7 - REST( A2 + GANZZAHL(A2 / 4) + (2 - GANZZAHL( (3*(GANZZAHL(A2/100))+3) / 4)); 7 )); 7)))

(english)
A short while ago a friend asked me how to calculate "easter sunday" based on a given "gregorian" year. He would need a formula for his excel file. So I gave him the following formula with A2 referring to the cell that contains an integer determining the year for which the easter sunday is to be calculated:

= DATE(A2;3;(21 + (MOD( 19*(MOD(A2;19)) + (15 + INT( (3*(INT(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - INT( (8*(INT(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) - (INT(INT( ((MOD( 19*(MOD(A2;19)) + (15 + INT( (3*(INT(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - INT( (8*(INT(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) + (MOD(A2;19))) /11 ) / 29)))+(7 - MOD((21 + (MOD( 19*(MOD(A2;19)) + (15 + INT( (3*(INT(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - INT( (8*(INT(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) - (INT(INT( ((MOD( 19*(MOD(A2;19)) + (15 + INT( (3*(INT(A2/100))+3) / 4 ) - INT( (8*(INT(A2/100))+13) / 25)); 30)) + (MOD(A2;19))) /11 ) / 29))) - (7 - MOD( A2 + INT(A2 / 4) + (2 - INT( (3*(INT(A2/100))+3) / 4)); 7 )); 7)))