I'm not sure how much help this will be for you, but here I go:
First of all, as far as I know, that ceramic thingy is perfectly normal, my monitor has one, and so does "jerryjanis"s (remember seeing one on his website wondering what it is).
Secondly, your monitor is very similiar to mine... I got my cab for cheap because the cab wasn't working anymore... i popped the back, and found a 4-inch jump. Looked dangerous... the fix was to put a plastic top from a small coffee can between the short and the metal it was sparking to. It looked like there was a small nick on a piece of black plastic (its up front in your picture.. I hope I remember the right part). Heres your picture with the locations indicated as close as I can remember..
Hope this helps..