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.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
March 6th, 2011 at 10:17 am
Just opened my laptop to discover that the screen is dark. I can barely see the screen in low light. Everything else about the computer seems to boot up correctly. Do you think that my problem is what is addressed here? dead CCFL tube? Thanks.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
mathyie,
First of all, check the graphics card settings. Make sure all color settings are at default values.
If all settings are correct, probably your LCD screen is getting old and has to be replaced.
February 6th, 2011 at 10:30 am
My laptop white background screen become to yellow (not pure white). I think that are cause by aging of white plate at the background screen. And than, I think maybe should replace with the new once.The during class lab computer lecture, i was make screen comparison color with desktop screen and my laptop screen.The result if quite difference color.So can someone tell me how fix it.
….Thank you(Mathyie,M’sia)
December 29th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Thanks for this. I just took apart the screen of my Inspiron 6400 and it was pretty similar. A couple of different screws and slightly different tape. I wouldn’t have known how to do it without reading this.
I cleaned out some dust and an annoying eyelash that had somehow found its way in. There was even some crud that had gathered on the back of the LCD film itself, which I wiped off very softly with a duster.
It’s looking better than before. Still some dust there, but it’s very difficult to see it all without the screen turned on. I have noticed some partially dead/stuck pixels that I don’t remember seeing before, so I’d advise being very careful about touching the LCD film. But it was worth it overall.
December 27th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Is it possible to replace the LCD without taking the entire display assembly off? The Dell online repair manual indicates that it should be disassembled and then opened. Your instructions seem easier than taking the whole top display assembly off the computer. My kid dropped his guitar on my screen so I need to replace it.
November 21st, 2010 at 11:06 am
kedare computers,
1. Test your laptop with an external monitor. Can you get image on the external monitor?
2. If there is no image on both, internal and external screens, check laptop memory. This could be memory failure. If you have two memory modules installed try removing them one by one.
November 21st, 2010 at 2:43 am
hello sir,
i have i ball model no. i1512 there is problem that when i put on my laptop processor fan stop in few second but display is not coming plz help me and guide this trouble shooting
thaku
shamik
abhijeet pardeshi
October 12th, 2010 at 6:42 am
Thanks for the instructions – they were invaluable!
My LCD was damaged in a car accident with cracks throughout it, so I ordered a cheap laptop of the same model (D810) through eBay for $50 that had a good screen. Followed your instructions and it worked!
Except – the backlight kept turning off after a few minutes of operation! So I took the backlight panel from my cracked LCD which still worked, and tried replacing the backlight panel from the replacement LCD, but the assemblies were different revisions, and they weren’t a direct replacement.
I ended up removing the light tube component from the good backlight panel and replacing the tube in the bad one (I discovered one of the leads to the tube had become separated and was just touching the contact – no way to fix/solder it on).
Crossing my fingers as I re-assembled the screen, I then powered up, and Yay! It works!
October 11th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Badharu,
I think you have bad LCD screen.
October 10th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
I have Dell Lattitude D610 laptop, problem with it is that the display in the screen showing only two lines(Contents in the top two lines of the screen are showing). All other parts of the screen is purely white color (nothing can be seen). The system is working properly when I connect it to another CRT monitor. Can anybody help me in this matter.