PG34WCDM Dead after 47 days. Need new T-con board.

[Tired1234]

My brother bought an Asus Swift OLED PG34WCDM monitor. It's a very expensive monitor at $1300, and after 47 days of owning it, it stops working. So my brother tries to contact them via email, and in typical Asus fashion they refused to honor the warranty giving him only two options:

1 - pay another $350+ in shipping alone to send it to their tech service and then pay whatever it cost in parts and labor on top of that, and since the actual displays and T-con are made by LG (like all OLED displays since LG owns the patent for OLED), they would not cover any of it. Plus swapping out parts inside a monitor is child's play and I'm not interested in paying someone else hundreds of dollars to do a 30 minute job I can do myself at home....... for free.... with ease.

2 - Buy a new monitor. It's only another $1300 +tax and shipping twice, putting him at almost $3000 for a monitor with a high failure rate at that point, right? pocket change!

After fighting over email with customer service, he seethed about it for a few months Tried taking it apart himself and looking at it since he couldn't make it any worse at this point, but decided it was over his head. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to take a stab at it, otherwise it's going in the trash. Trying to troubleshoot, you can push the power button and it lights up sometimes orange sometimes red, and I'm assuming red means it's one since plugging it into my PC that has 2 other monitors I can see the PC recognizes another monitor has been hooked up and I can go into Nvidia control panel and see it there, so the main board seems ok, but there is no picture at all. No indication of any signal getting to the actual LEDs, leading me to believe it's the T-con board.

Searching the forums and Reddit, and any other source I could find this is a common problem with this monitor and no one seems to have a solution yet, the customer service agents on the forums are just bots that tell you how to check on your repair status after the OP of the thread already said they weren't willing to pay to send it in, or they will only DM the OP so that everyone else has to also create a thread to get any answers.

I went ahead and took the monitor back apart and started testing the capacitors and they all seemed fine and couldn't find any other bad components which leaves the main chip as the most likely issue. As a last-ditch effort, I tried baking it but no luck there either. I took a break from messing with it, and now here I am at it again giving it one last go before it goes in the dumpster.

It's hard for me to just throw away an otherwise brand new $1300 monitor, but if I can't get a new T-con board then there is no point in this brick taking up space in my home. Depending on the price I would even consider buying 2 T-con boards in case it happens again.

Product info:
Asus Swift OLED Monitor
Model Number: PG34WCDM
SKU: 90LM09L0-B01AB0
S/N: RCLMRS022353
Manufacture date: December 2023
Purchase Date: February 19th 2024

Part needed:
LG Display Co. LTD.
Model Number: LW34/390CWQ-ESG1-YJA
P/N: 6870C-1028A
Ver: 0.7 H/F

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @Tired1234 

Sorry to hear you had a battle with the return. Your post doesn't seem to explain why the RMA was refused.

CS should be able to pick this up next week, but be sure to provide as much information as possible. They will likely ask for your case number via PM. 

[Tired1234]

I would have to contact my brother to see if he can get me the case number, but this isn't exactly an unusual occurrence when dealing with Asus customer service. Every RMA I've tried through Asus has been rejected. Plus with the shell having been opened since then they for-sure aren't going to RMA it now, and I wouldn't expect them to at this point. What I need is a way to purchase a new T-con board for this monitor so I can hopefully get it up and running again.

[Silent_Scone]

It does matter, though. If it was rejected within warranty, we need to know why rather than making blanket statements like “it’s a common occurrence”. You’re in this predicament for that very reason, so best to address it.

I take it you’ve checked eBay? 

[Tired1234]

They stated they would only cover parts that Asus themselves manufactured. That means ONLY part they will warranty on this product is the main board which has your bios, I/O ports, and settings. The rest of this monitor is made by LG as stated above. So yeah, only one piece of the total product is covered under any kind of warranty. That is why we're in this predicament. Being already aware of their infamously bad customer service and warranties had nothing to do with it (which I did warn him about before he bought it, but he didn't think it would happen to him). Obviously, he wasn't going to pay the $350+ in shipping to send it in after they told him up front he would be liable for shipping, labor, and any parts except for the mainboard, which is why he decided to open it up and see if there was anything he could do on his own, and later decided to ask me about it since I've worked in TV/monitor, and other electronic repair in the past.

I did try ebay as well as a handful of other sites to buy replacement parts (with questionable legitimacy), the last time I looked at it, but the monitor was still too new to have spare parts floating around. Checking back I see 2 of them listed for $45 with a 15 day return if they don't work, so I'm snatching both of them up now. If they both work (fingers crossed that they do) I'll keep the second one for a backup. Thank you for the suggestion to check back again.

That said, there really needs to be a way for people to purchase new replacement parts for situations like this where said parts are not covered under any warranty, instead of hoping someone on ebay has a spare to part out. There are plenty of people out there competent enough to swap out a board themselves and willing to void what little warranty there is to be back up and running again relatively fast, and being able to fix something instead of throwing it away would offer a little extra comfort to people dropping a lot of money on harware. 

[Aureliannn_ROG]

Hi @Tired1234 ,

We are very sorry to hear about the issues your brother is experiencing with his monitor.

According to our official warranty policy, any self-disassembly will void the warranty. If the monitor has already been disassembled by yourself, the service center may charge a fee for any repairs. The actual cost will be determined based on the engineer's assessment.

We do not recommend using third-party parts for self-repair as it may lead to compatibility issues. We suggest bringing the monitor to an authorized service center where our engineers can accurately diagnose the problem and provide the necessary assistance.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global