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 flat head 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 transferred 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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January 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I have a Dell Inspiron 1150, I didn’t drop it or spill anything on it. One day I go to turn it on and the Dell logo flashes then the screen goes black, I can see windows booting up but it’s very very very faint. After that, all I see is a black screen. Do I have to replace the whole screen or is there another (cheaper) alternative?
January 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Hi i have a soney laptop, few days iam facing a problem with my screen it shoes 3 vertical lines from left sides of the monitor 2 of them are blue and one is red, can you help me to solve this problem pls?
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:50 am
verry good disply iwant to see compaq laptop lcd reapair
December 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
i have hi-grade laptop when i turn it on the switch on boton and wirless boton turn it on and i hear normal sound like when it start , but the screen still black ,but when turn it off and turnd on again if the wirless boton not turn it on its start window and the screen opend as normal, but some times when turn it on and the wirless no light it does some noise sound and the screen still black, i dont know whats problem, because it was work as normally and i didnt have any accident with it , please help me , thanks.
December 27th, 2008 at 12:50 am
hi , my notbook ibm thinkpad R51 show half portion display on lcd pannel { bottom side is blank white screen top portion is ok} what can i rectify it any budy pls help me
December 21st, 2008 at 12:48 am
greg,
Find a cheaper screen and replace it yourself.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:42 am
my lcd screen on my toshiba satellite notebook crashed and it seems that the warranty won’t cover it. is it possible for me to fix it without having to dish out $425?
December 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Fazel,
I think there could be a problem with the hard drive. Run test on the hard drive, you can use Hitachi’s drive fitness test.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Don (comment 262),
Sounds like a problem with the LCD screen, apparently the backlight lamp is dying. That’s my guess.
I don’t think that your problem is related to the inverter. From my experience, when inverter fails, the entire LCD goes dark, not just a part of the LCD.
Most likely there is only one backlight lamp. The backlight lamp is located INSIDE the LCD screen on the bottom and it runs horizontally. It’s possible to replace the backlight lamp yourself as I posted here:
How to replace laptop backlight lamp (CCFL)
But it’s very difficult. If you have no laptop repair experience, most likely you’ll make it worse and damage the LCD screen, so proceed on your own risk. I would suggest replacing the LCD screen.
I’ve seen backlight lamps like that, when one side is brighter than the other one.
The only reliable way would be testing the laptop with another LCD screen.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Oliver,
You cannot fix the ribbon, you’ll have to replace it with a new one.
From your description it sounds like there is a problem with the LCD screen, not the ribbon cable. That’s my guess.