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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April 9th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
ahh! the dreaded don’t touch that tape warning;->
I touched it and live to tell the tale. On my display, behind the tape were flexible circuitry hinges that link the adjacent circuit board visible on the back side of the assembly to the display panel that faces the the front side. As I removed that tape I couldn’t help worry about what gremlin was about to be unleashed. My take is that this is all sensitive and so I did my best to avoid any abrasion or contact with anthing with these surfaces.
Additionally once I opened the hinge I elevated the display and allowed the hinge to fully open just past 180 degrees. This took a little work to get something to get just the right heights for both hinged sides and to keep any tension on the hinge itself to a minimum.
To preserve that tape I got out a long cookie sheet and stuck it to the clean backside of it. The cookie sheet as a palette idea turned out to be useful for all of the several the tape pieces I found I had to remove.
Don’t touch the tape – bah! I dare you :->
April 9th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Just out of curiosity …
I see that, on your pictures (and in my own laptop) there is that white tape with specific instructions not to touch it. However, it would appear that you are, in fact, touching it when you’re displaying where to remove the screws on the side of the screen.
What is the reason for not touching this tape? And, if it is touched incidentally, is that cause for major concern? And, if so, can it be easily cleaned / repaired?
April 9th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Thanks CJ,
Yes great idea – eBay to the rescue. I completely disassembled it yesterday. The inverter was actually very easy to remove; the backlight is quite the opposite. To get the backlight out you will have to take every piece of the display waffle layers apart and the outer metalic rim/frame. The 5100’s backlight is nestled along the bottom of the inner plastic frame in a u-shaped metalic channel that fits snuggly into this plastic. Additionally when you get down to only having the backlight assembly in that plastic frame there is a keyed black plastic topper which you have to spend a bit of time studying how both the left and right sides must be manipulated to remove. Once that is off then I had to take an exacto knife carefully under the backlight channel where it is glued to the frame. Then the backlight pops out. After all that I stuggled putting it all back together without smudging any of the film layers or the glass. This was the hardest thing. After several failed attempts of keeping everything aligned, I improved my techniques and got it fully assembled.
Post-op I’m convinced the backlight is fine and therefore the inverter is at fault. For roughly $30 I hope to aquire a replacement. This will be a reasonable cost for the fix.
My advice to anyone considering removing the backlight would be to not do it. The reason is that unless you are in a clean room you will likely gather dust on the display’s waffle layers as you handle them. You won’t notice this until you’ve got the whole back together and figuring out which layer holds the dark spot is itself likely to induce smudges. It is a viscious downward spiral. The backlight itself is a self contained part that could be simply replaced without soldering if not for the above mentioned issues.
BTW I took pictures of the process.
April 8th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Dale,
The backlight lamp is located INSIDE the LCD screen, I’m not sure if it’s behind the top edge or the bottom edge.
Search for “Inspiron 5100 inverter” here and you’ll see how it looks like.
If the screen still has a very faint image but no backlight, most likely it’s just a bad inverter board.
April 8th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
adik,
Is it a thin vertical line about 1-2 pixels wide running across the entire screen? If yes, then there is not much you can do to fix it. It’s a screen problem and you’ll have to replace the screen (or get used to this line).
April 8th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Thank you very much for detailing your disassembly with photos. I’ve recently gotten a fully functioning Inspiron 5100 with good external display but the LCD is completely dark. I am considering replacing the backlight or inverter myself and you’ve helped a lot with your pictures. I have the display panel removed but cannot tell one part from another. For instance I wondered if the backlight was behind the top edge or the bottom edge and was the inverter the circuit board in the middle of my display of the one that has the caution tape on it running across the top of the panel.
Kudos and thanks – Dale
April 7th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Peter,
Can you see the taskbar above this blank area on the screen or it covers the taskbar with part of the image?
If you can see the whole desktop, including all icons and taskbar (the image on the screen appears to be compressed vertically), it’s possible it’s just a software related issue. Play with the screen resolution, test if the display works fine in Safe Mode. Try reinstalling the video driver.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Shawn,
Test the laptop with an external screen and see how the external video is displayed. If you have the same bad video on the external screen, there is a problem with the video card.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:15 am
hello i have a problem of my lcd laptop acer. hopefully you can help me. on my lcd screen have a line in the middle. what i suppose to do?
April 4th, 2007 at 4:23 am
Bottom inch or so of my LCD is blank.
Any ideas