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.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
April 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
so, my hp tx2510us tablet also has the same problem as Jacob who posted previously: everything works fine except the glass is cracked. I don’t use the touch screen, only the digitizer anyways, so really I just need to buy a standard 12.1″ screen and replace the glass in mine with the glass in that one, right?
April 25th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I tried the above process and on checking the optical layers hey were pretty clean already and even afer wiping them with cloth still the colors haven’t imrpoved for me. But when i connect my laptop to LCD it works properly. What could be the issue
April 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Hi,I am glad to find your post. I just managed to ruin my Latitude D510’s screen with some monitor cleaning lotion seeping inside it. I was wondering if you tried to clean the optical layers with distiled water, as seen in the youtube video “water damage mobile LCD cleaning”. Also, have you noticed layers stuck together, that had to be forcefuly separated? I hope someone could help me. Thanks.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:37 am
I have two M2000 compaq presario one have a bad motherboard, the other have a bad LCD screen,I tried replacing the backlight to the one with the bad LCD screen but still will not light up,is it possible to remove the whole LCD screen from the moherboard and swap it from one to the other? How do you remove the wiring connection from the motherboard to the screen? Thanks!! G Velez
April 21st, 2009 at 7:08 am
Dear cj2600,
You said:
“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.” My case: I opened my screen (I have a dry water stain) but I didn’t dare to go ahead to open the layers and so on… I want to ask you If you think if one can “at least in some degree” clean the stain (since I do not have another LCD to use for replacement). (If you want I can send you a picture of the stain). And: do you think it can be done in an non-clean normal room?
best,
April 19th, 2009 at 11:46 am
S M,
Apparently, both display hinges are broken and have to be replaced. You’ll have to take apart the display panel and replace both hinges.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Hi,
I have old Dell Latitude CPX model laptop. Works fine except the top cover does not remains in position when I opens it, what I mean is it falls back flat. I have to keep some support in the back to keep in position (upright). Can I fix this problem? If yes how? I will highly appreciate your advise and help in this matter.
Also if you could advise where could I find Memory card for this Laptop. current Memory is 512 MB.
Thanks,
April 9th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Hi !
I just need to ask if you remove the backlight housing and how difficult to put it back and @ what steps did you replace it.
I did try replacing the backlight but having problem to put it back on D810 and D600 due to tolerance between the backlight housing and the plastic groove underneath. In my approach i did not remove the top circuit board and the metal frame around the LCD but in your process i believe you need to uninstall them too for proper fittings. Please advise when you have extra time to answer this inquiry.
Thanks.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:50 am
P. Kajzar,
Is it the same size LCD? Does it have the same type of connector for the video cable? If you answer yes to both questions, probably it will fit. You’ll have to try.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I want to express my gratitude for your help manual!!
I have learned a lot from them and I was able without any problem Take out my crashed LSD from Toshiba Portege R200 . It is broken and only thing to do is exchange it. I have older Portege R100 but I was wondering if it will suite? New LCD costs nearly more then all notebook so I would like to recycled one older version witch may be compatible ( maybe from P2000 or 2010 ?) .
It has 20pin connector . I hired that those from Toshiba Portege 4010 it’s possible to convert in some way but how?. Thank You and maybe someone will know how to help