MY five-year-old 19 inch Philips 190B6CB LCD monitor provided trusty service until yesterday, when the increase volume button decided to activate of its own accord, and stay on. As I don't use the monitor speakers this wouldn't be a big problem, except that it permanently activated the on-screen display, a fully opaque rectangle in the middle of the screen. I don't think my monitor has transparency options for the OSD, but the overriding nature of the volume meant I couldn't even get into the menu to move the OSD to a less conspicuous spot. Luckily, I have tools.
The monitor is a year or two outside its warranty period, and larger new monitors are really cheap, so I had no qualms about dissecting the screen. I read that some other soul had simply disconnected the front-panel controls to solve the problem in their monitor, so that was my aim. The bezel was mostly held in place by clips along its side, so with some rough flat-head screwdriver work, much like removing a bicycle inner tube, I got the bezel mostly off. There were also a couple of screws hidden under the stand attachment, but once they were removed the bezel came off easily.
The front-panel control section was a separate module that was easy to find and disconnect. The connection was a clip rather than being soldered, so the disconnection was easily reversible. A quick power-up confirmed that the problem was fixed.
The bezel went back on easily, and the monitor is now back in working order. One oddity is that the front-panel controls still work. Given that the problem is cured I'm not going to investigate further. I'll attribute it to the monitor fairy.
Update 2-Jan-2011: The OSD problem returned, but this time I rectified it properly using the Philips 190B5 Service Manual on scribd.com. The manual shows where the screws to remove the bezel are located, and indicates how to disconnect the front-panel controls. I rarely use those controls, so this fix should be satisfactory, at least until I feel the urge to move to a 24" widescreen behemoth.