How I took apart and repaired my notebook LCD screen with water damage
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.
Entry Filed under: LCD Screen Repair
236 Responses to “How I took apart and repaired my notebook LCD screen with water damage”
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Pages: « 24 … 22 21 20 19 18 [17] 16 15 14 13 12 … 1 » Show All
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Hi. I have a Compaq presario V3000. The problem is that the picture shows like a “film negative”. The color is fine with external monitor. The LCD screen is bright enough. I suspect a bad display cable or the LCD screen itself.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
It’s not that it’s a Dell that means it’s poor quality –It’s that is was an INSPERION. Latitudes have a much better track record.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Hi!
I am having a weird problem with the display of my HP Pavilio DV5234US (15.4″ WXGA 1280×800) and I would much appreciate you pointing me in the right direction as I dont know if this is a display card /MB problem or a LCD panel problem.
I have posted a picture of the working display here: http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3761/laptopscreench5.jpg
as it is a little bit difficult for me to explain the problem but as you can see, basically the screen is divided into three parts (actually 4 as there is a thin stripe at the bottom).
It is not a problem with the OS (WIN XP SP2) as the same proble ocurrest a post or setup.
Except for the “split” panels, the video quality is perfect and I can change resolution, color depth, etc.
The only other odd thing I have noticed is that the LCD panel refresh rate is fixed at 49 Hz interlaced (should be 60 Hz I think) and MONINFO reports a vertical scan range of 0 - 49HZ which is also not reasonable.
The laptop is around 2 months out of warranty (of course!) and it has had very little use since purchased.
Any help would be more than appreciated!!!
TIA,
Juan Carlos
January 14th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I liked your thought process on the lcd repair. I have replaced many laptop screens and have had several apart, however after reading your experience with the water damaged screen and the layered transparent film transplant. I think I will attempt more repairs and see if I can reuse some parts from my growing stack of cracked and non working lcd screens. Thanks for the detailed instructions, it must have taken quite a bit of extra time to document the repair process, and I appreciate your posting it on this site.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
The back side of my Dell Latitude 610 is cracked. The screen is ok but i have to replace the back shell of the computer. I recently purchased this part. Now I am unsure of how to sucessfully take off the old part without ruining my screen. Should i have a professional do it or is it something that i would be able to do!
January 11th, 2008 at 12:36 am
jack slater,
I would check what else he’s selling. If he specializes in selling laptop LCD screens, most likely he knows what he’s talking about.
In most cases, the same laptop has more then one compatible LCD but I cannot advise you in this case, I do not work with Acer laptops.
Check out Acer service manuals, maybe you’ll find some help in there.
January 10th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
how do i fix my laptop because when i turn it on there is a folderwith a question mark and it doesnt go away.And i cannot use my i book from 2000.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Hi and tnx for reply. I have found a seller on ebay, that sells the LCD panel for 1680 series. When I asked him if the panel is compatible with the 1690 series, he told me yes. Do you think is better to ask him the exact manufacturer and part number he sells me, before order it?
bb and tnx
January 6th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I have a vgn-sz33op sony laptop I guess the screen is cracked I can’t get no picture when i press the screen I get a a certain area where it just …u know its where the problem is u can tell its cracked how do I replace it. So new too I just picked up by pinching the screen.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
PA,
There is no way to find out until you test the laptop with another working LCD screen. You’ll have to guess.
Last week I had to repair a laptop with similar problem. It was a Satellite M35X. The LCD screen was turning solid white after a few minute. The laptop worked fine with an external monitor until the laptop had good video on the internal LCD screen. As soon as video on LCD goes white, video on the external screen goes off. In my case it was a motherboard related problem and I had to replace the motherboard.
Two days ago my fried had to repair a Sony laptop with similar white screen. External video worked fine all the time even when laptop LCD was white. Replacing LCD and video cable didn’t fix the problem. He had a problem with the motherboard too.
But in some cases this solid white screen could be related to bad LCD screen, I’ve seen this problem before.
There is no simple answer, you’ll have to guess. From my experience some Satellite L25 laptops have very weak screens, so it could be related to the LCD.
It depends how much you pay for parts.