Yesterday took apart and repaired my notebook LCD screen with water damage. The screen itself was working just fine but it had two different problems.
- previous owner spilled water on the laptop. Somehow the water got inside the LCD screen and left stains inside the screen. The water marks were very noticeable on a white background and it was very irritating.
- the screen also had dust and lint inside also very noticeable on a white background. I have no idea how it got in there but I decided to clean it up too.
To fix both problems I had to open up the LCD screen. This was my first experience on opening a notebook screen. I was pretty confident because I didn’t really care if I break the screen, I just wanted to know if it’s possible to fix it.
Warning: the LCD screen can be easily damaged if you open it up. If you do something wrong the screen might become completely unusable and you’ll have to buy a new screen. It’s very expensive. Think twice before you decide opening the screen. Continue at your own risk.
Here’s my Dell Latitude D610 notebook with water damaged screen I’m going to take apart.
First of all remove the battery from the notebook.
Lift up rubber screw seals and remove all screws.
Carefully separate the screen bezel from the LCD cover and remove the bezel.
Remove two screws from the front and two screws from both sides.
Carefully remove the LCD screen from the cover and place it on the notebook base. Disconnect the video cable and the inverter board cable.
On this model the inverter board is attached to the screen with two screws. Remove both screws, disconnect the screen cable and remove the inverter board.
Carefully peel off sticky tape and foil and put it aside. You’ll have to put it back in place during the screen reassembly.
Remove two screws from both sides of the screen.
Carefully place the screen upside down on a flat surface. Carefully unglue the film that covers the circuit board and remove two screws from the board (top circles). I wasn’t really sure if I have to remove screws on the bottom, so I removed them just in case. Do not touch the circuit board with fingers.
After both screws are removed you should be able to lift up the circuit board. Be careful, it’s still attached to the LCD.
Start unsnapping the metal frame from the screen. There are a lot of latches on all sides of the screen. You can unlock them with nails or a small flathead screwdriver.
After all latches are opened you should be able to separate the screen into three pieces: metal frame, LCD and background (not sure about correct technical name).
If you have lint or dust inside the screen, probably you’ll find it between the LCD and the background. Do not touch LCD or background with your fingers. I was able to remove dust and lint up with a very soft cloth, barely touching the LCD and background surfaces.
After I split the screen I found that the background has a few some kind of optical layers (three transparent sheets) and in my case they were damaged by water. The water dried out and left stains between these optical layers.
In my case removing dust and lint wasn’t enough and I had to go further.
Very carefully separate the LCD with attached circuit board from the background.
To remove damaged optical layers it’s necessary to remove metal locks on both sides of the screen. It’s like a small clip that keeps layers in place.
After I removed both clips, I was able to look between the layers. At first I tried to clean up the dried water marks with a soft cloth but it didn’t help. The stains were still visible and didn’t want to go away.
Fortunately I had another similar screen laying around, it had a cracked LCD. I decided to borrow the optical layers from the cracked screen and transfer them to my screen. I wasn’t sure if it’s going to work, but as I mentioned before I didn’t really care if I break the screen. It was just an experiment.
So I disassembled the cracked screen and carefully transfered the white background and all transparent layers to my screen.
After that I assembled my screen back removing dust and lint with a very soft cloth. Breathlessly connected my new screen to the notebook. Turned it on and…
That’s a miracle, it works!
No dust, no lint, no water mars inside the screen! It’s clear and the background is absolutely clean!
My donor screen had a cracked LCD but it had a good working backlight tube. The backlght tube is very fragile and it’s located inside a metal casing. I didn’t remove the backlight tube, I just broke off the entire metal casing from the plastic frame. I’m going to use this backlight tube for testing purposes.
If you fixing a Dell laptop yourself, probably you’ll need a service manual. Some Dell service manuals provide step-by-step laptop disassembly instructions.
Are you looking for a new screen? You can find very inexpensive brand new LCD screens here, just search for your laptop model.
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December 10th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Well, I have an HP Pavilion dv9535nr with a nice 17″ widescreen LCD. That is, it WAS nice…until one day when I was atempting to clean surface of the screen. I hadn’t noticed how damp a cloth I was using, and so when I finished the job (to much perfection I ght add) I booted up my laptop only to find that about 2/3 of the screen (horizontally from the bottom up) didn’t work and the 1/3 worked but had just a couple of “rows” drawn straight across the screen. I also noticed what apeared to be a crack underneath the screen.
Fearing the worst, I cried for aprox. 15min. Then I atempted to remedy the situation. I tried leaving the laptop on all night while slept, keeping the lid closed and just letting the machine warm up. I was trying to see it maybe the warmth would eventually evaporate the water. I put it partially under my cover as I slept.
I woke up the next morning, and then observed the results. The “crack” that I had seen was actually water, and it was much smaller now. I now concluded that the damp cloth seeped some of the liquid into the edge of the left side and then it got into the screen itself. I had hoped that it wouldn’t be so hard to repair. But I didn’t want to try anything yet, so I am wating for it hopefuly continue evaporating. Also, the output still isn’t displaying that bottom 2/3 of the screen. Luckiliy, I have been getting by on my external 19″ Samsung SyncMaster 906BW, but I need that screen working again, seeing as how it’s a laptop.
December 9th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
[...] to explain how to remove LCD from a laptop, it’s been covered before. Here some examples: Removing LCD screen from a Dell laptop. Taking apart IBM ThinkPad display panel. Removing screen from Toshiba [...]
December 4th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Well, here is my third post (without a response from the admins yet) regarding the problem I have had for over a month now.
I got my hands on another laptop of the same make (Inspiron 2200) and checked my LCD on it. IT WORKED FINE.
So, now its definitely the motherboard. But the external display works fine so it couldn’t be the video card.
I also checked the lid-close switch which looked fine. But still I shorted the switch’s ends to bypass the lid-close switch. Output still the same: LCD doesn’t work but the external display does.
From what I suspect, something is telling the system that the lid is closed but its not the led close switch. What else could be it? maybe an IC or a broken wiring on the board? Is there a way I can check this up?
November 30th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Gatolt,
I don’t know, probably yes. But you need to find another LCD, so you can transfer all transparent layers from the loaner to your screen.
One time, after I assembled everything back together, I got a few dark spots inside the screen. These dark spots were noticeable on the white background and I wasn’t satisfied. I’m not sure how I got them, maybe I accidentally pressed on the screen during the disassembly process so I had to take it apart again. I took it apart and kinda reseated the transparent layers. I just separated layer one from another and put it back together in the same order. After that my dark spots were gone. Not sure if this technique will help to remove your white cloudy spots. You have to do it in a clean room, otherwise you’ll get dust or lint inside the screen.
While creating this guide, I had to disassemble/assemble the screen a few times. It wasn’t as easy as it looks in the instructions above.
By the way, underneath the transparent layers there is a white sheet – background. Maybe the background is dirty an that’s why you see these spots? This is just a guess.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Laptoprepair101.com was a “LifeSaver For ME”.. Very Detailed Instruction That was “Dummie-proof Enough For Me To Follow”.
The whole process took a total of 30-minutes to effect repairs on a severely crack LCD Panel on a Gateway MX6124. I Can not Thank These People Enough For Helping Explain What I thought was an ardious task being made simply for a layperson.
Thank You,Thank You,Thank You!!!!!!!….
R.Askew
November 28th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Thank you for so detailed instructions . I have read trough all posts but don’t find neccessary answer. How do You think- changing LCD layers will help to remove white spots? Now I san “see” through monitor and see all support points behind LCD as white cloudy spots. I have Dell Latitude D600. Thank You
November 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Director,
Nope, this solution will not work. If the LCD screen has a few vertical lines (see example 2), then you’ll have to replace the whole LCD screen.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Your instructions on how to replace the layers was quite informative. However, could you please advise if this solution is applicable to a lcd with different colored vertical lines on the screen at startup and windows?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
EMoorhead
November 20th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Excellent guide!! Thanks for you help!
November 19th, 2007 at 5:07 am
hi, here is my problem i have a ibm think pad a21m and the white color all seems to be either a grayish pink or pink color,,any idea what this could be… thanks