removing SBC Self Support Tool

A year ago I was using SBC/Yahoo high speed internet. That service was fine, but when I moved, it was unavailable in my area. So I switched to Verizon.

I never cleaned up all the stuff that SBC/Yahoo installed on my PC. This morning, I found a directory called "C:\Program Files\SBC Self Support Tool". In that directory was a program called "Uninstall.exe". When I ran that, a dialog box popped up, telling me to use "Control Panel" > "Add or Remove Programs" to uninstall. But the Control Panel did not show any sign of the SBC Self Support Tool.

I did an internet search and found a suggestion to use Windows Live Safety Center Cleanup. I went to their site, and found myself facing a T&C form, scratched my head about that, and surfed away to look for another suggestion. Fortunately, I found Todd George's instructions. The Uninstall.exe program requires the argument "SBC". So I ran it like this:

C:\>"C:\Program Files\SBC Self Support Tool\Uninstall.exe" SBC

and it worked. A dialog popped up telling me the uninstall was in progress. At some point I got another dialog telling me to shut down all browsers, which I did. I also got another message telling me

Uninstall was unable to remove the following folder -

C:\Program Files\SBC Self Support Tool\SmartBridge

Please delete it manually after Uninstall is finished.


After the uninstall was complete, I found that the "SBC Self Support Tool" directory was not completely empty. There's still a subdirectory called "MFSS" which seems to contain an html manual for the internet service, support tool, etc. I don't mind deleting that... the SmartBridge directory has a dll file called SBHook.dll. Maybe I'll just leave it there.

the circuit board

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This is a very blurry photo of the circut board. Counting from the left, there are four circular copper-colored dots. The on/off switch is, I believe, the little rectangular doohickey to the right of the fourth dot. It may be connected to the fourth dot in some way.

Having gotten this far, it was discouraging to abandon the cause, but that's what I did. With nothing obvious to try, I just left the monitor in a corner, and went out to get a new one.

On the one hand, I was loathe to buy a new Dell monitor because of my bad experience with this one. However, I do really like the look of the Dell monitors. And I hoped that if I bought a Dell, I'd be able to afix it to the Dell swivel stand that came with my old one. I really like the swivel stand.

I found a relatively cheap Dell (about $220) at Best Buy. It's a widescreen 19-inch flatscreen monitor, and so far it is satisfactory.

I do not like widescreen monitors, and would have bought a regular monitor, but I couldn't find any other kind at Best Buy! I find widescreens are only an advantage when viewing tv shows or movies online, and for any other computer use they are disadvantageous, since you get less vertical real estate for viewing email, web pages, text files, and general coding purposes. Oh well, I can deal with it.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out what to do with my old monitor. I hate to junk it, since it's relatively new. In fact, it may have been still under warantee, but I couldn't find my papers for it (this is what happens when you move). I tried to find an authorized Dell repair shop in my area, but so far I can't even figure out how to find any authorized Dell repair shop. So my monitor is in limbo.

Do I really need to say the legal stuff again? Perhaps. Kids, if you try this at home, it's your own responsibility. If anything like mayhem, death, or broken fingernails result, it is not my fault!

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the buttons

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Once the screws were removed, I could finally free the plastic lip from the monitor casing. Here you see the buttons. All of the buttons look the same, except for the on/off button. The on/off button is empty; the others have a small slightly raised bar down the middle.

At this point, I was stymied, unfortunately. It appears to me that the difference between the on/off and the other buttons is deliberate. It doesn't look like anything broke off the on/off button; there is nothing clearly missing.

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detaching the circuit board

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Finally, I reached the area of the lip just around the row of control buttons, with the on/off button nearest the corner. Here I found that it was impossible to fully remove the lip.

As shown in this photo, the buttons are covered by a small circuit board, and the circuit board is connected to the monitor with a small ribbon. At this stage in the disassembly, I did my best not to disturb the ribbon, but it was difficult because the ribbon was the only thing connecting the lip to the monitor body.

I was stuck. The circuit board was fastened to the lip with a set of 5 teeny tiny Phillips (crosshead) screws, and I didn't have a set of teeny tiny screwdrivers. So I gave up for the evening.

The following evening, I stopped off at RadioShack. RadioShack used to be much more geek friendly, but I think they may have decided there's a broader market in the general public, and that it would make sense to devote more shelf space to standard appliances like cell phones and televisions. At least, this place didn't have the huge variety of technical tools that I was hoping to find. (I looked for a real spudger, but couldn't find one. Where does one get a spudger?) However, they did have several sets of teeny tiny screwdrivers. I bought a nifty set of six miniature Phillips-head screwdrivers, ranging from 1.4 mm to 3.5 mm, and hoped one would do the trick.

As you can see, one was just right - the 2.0 mm size did the trick. Removing the screws was surprisingly easy. I'm pretty bad with removing screws and have a habit of stripping them, but had no such problem here.

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popping the fasteners with a spudger

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Here you can see that I'm halfway done with removing the lip of the monitor. Popping the fasteners got much easier once I moved around the first corner.

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removing the lip

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Here's another blurry photo, as I make my way around the lip with my letter opener.
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attacking the front

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I searched the internet for information about getting into a Dell flatscreen monitor, but there was precious little info. I finally found a page at Fixya that described how it can be done. Delli Llama wrote:

...After UNPLUGGING the monitor and removing the stand and the 4 obvious screws in the back, turn the monitor onto its back and placing your palms against one side of the monitor, and using your FINGER TIPS, gently pull back the plastic lip away from the LCD screen. Move along the lip, doing this a little bit at a time...

This gave me the idea of attacking from the front.

I tried just using my fingertips as suggested, but you must have fingertips of steel for that to work. Eventually I resorted to my letter opener, which serves as a makeshift spudger.

This somewhat blurry photo illustrates where to insert the spudger. I was surprised that it worked, since the seal looked incredibly tight.

Oh and obviously, the monitor was unplugged while doing this. I am not so stupid as to attempt disassembling electronic equipment while it is plugged in. In fact this monitor had been unplugged for a couple of days. I recall that CRT monitors should be left unplugged for some time before attempting to work on them, and I'm not sure if the same caution applies for these new flatscreen things.
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disassembling a Dell 1907FPc flatscreen monitor

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I've heard you should never ever use your monitor's on/off button, because they fail easily. However, I never got around to setting up a powerstrip for the monitor, and I don't like seeing the little glowing button wasting energy. So I've turned monitor on and off day in and day out for over two years now.

Last Saturday, when I hit that button, nothing happened. Hitting the button didn't feel right (no nice clicking feeling), so I thought it might be a simple task to rig something up to fix the button, if that were the problem.

However, getting into the monitor was no easy task. Looking at the thing, it was hard to decide where to begin - everything was sealed together so tightly. I decided to start with the back, since there were four obvious screws there. I removed them, but was then stymied since there seemed to be no further angle of attack.
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