 Today, I'm going to be repairing a Sony PVM8041Q professional video monitor. This little monitor has 250 TV lines of resolution. It also supports multiple video formats such as PAL, MTSC, and even CCAM. While this is a sharp little monitor, it definitely has an issue, and it's a pretty common issue, so I want to go through that problem today and we're going to fix it. So here's the problem. Randomly and intermittently, the screen will go to black and white. It will randomly drop all colors and just start producing a black and white picture with an occasional wave through it. Fortunately for us, this is a pretty common problem with 8-inch Sony PVMs from the early 90s, so after spending some time doing some research on Google and finding some troubleshooting tips on Reddit, I found a solution for this intermittent color loss on our screen. The problem comes from the color board inside the monitor. So to get started for our repair today, I'm going to remove the shell. And for this job, I need my soldering iron, and I've already got my board set up here. See the problem comes from this board right here, and I'm not going to actually remove it for this repair. According to a lot of research I found, this particular PVM was produced with a lower end solder. So this solder tends to break down after 20 plus years. And while that solder breaks down, cold solder joints tend to form. The first place to look is the main chip on this board. It's right in the center here. I'm just going to use some flux and then reflow the pins slowly with fresh solder. This was one of the first PVMs I got in a haul from a CRT recycling facility. So I've had it for about two years. And it's had a couple issues even before this repair. Originally it had some bad capacitors on the power supply board which had to be replaced. So if you have a PVM like this and you start to have power issues where it will not turn on, check the capacitors inside this PVM on the power supply board. Now back to this repair, please make sure you take your time. This repair really requires a steady hand, and don't be afraid to use a lot of flux. The flux really helps the solder flow freshly over the pins and it keeps them from bridging. It also keeps your solder from flowing onto the other components that are surrounding the pin you're trying to get solder onto. So I also reflowed some other points on this board. You can see the little brownish areas where there's still some flux on the board. Those are the areas I reflowed. Any of these connection points that you see are surrounded by a rectangle of white marks and then the little pins there. The repairs have all been completed so it's time to fire up this PVM and run some tests. As you can see we've got a color display screen which is a good start. Now I need to put some pressure on this PVM by letting it run for a while, running some different input tests and seeing if the gray color will come back. First test I'm going to run is just a playthrough on RGB and I've got RGB set up with Super Nintendo and we're going to play some F-Zero. Alright so now let's just jump right into this testing and see how much fun we can have playing on such a minuscule little 8 inch screen. This monitor is a perfect match for any kind of workbench. It has a smaller size and accepts all kinds of analog video inputs for testing while you may be working on a piece of equipment out in your shop. While it does have the same inputs and 240p and 480i capabilities of a larger Sony PVM and RGB monitor, it still does not give you the same screen effects that the 14 and 20 inch and larger screens will. You're not going to see a scan line pattern, it's more of a dotted scan pattern on the screen. So let's go now and take a look at some gameplay footage so you can see what I'm trying to explain. Alright so how about a little turtles in time action. This is on the Super Nintendo and we've got RGB again. We're going to look at the screen resolution. As I stated earlier, this Trenetron screen has 250 TV lines of resolution leading to a very sharp picture that's almost high definition and it's very pleasing to the eye. When you get real close to this screen, you'll notice a tiny dot pattern across the display area, which in turn creates a unique look. But don't expect to see any large fat scan lines on an 8 inch CRT tube. So if you come across a 8 inch PVM and you notice a problem with either losing power or maybe the screen just loses its color all of a sudden, first try this repair. All you really need is a soldering iron, some fresh solder, and some flux. If you're looking for repair tips or advice, please check out my Patreon page. Please go ahead and smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell notification if you haven't already done so. I'm Steve with Retro Tech, thanks and have a wonderful day.