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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November 14th, 2011 at 2:30 am
Hi,
Your instructions for taking apart the screen are very clear- I have a samsung 19 inch monitor with two patches of water just behind the soft outer layer of the lcd screen- think that monitor too can be taken apart?
Thank you.
September 25th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
I dropped my Inspirion E1405 notebook, and the LCD screen got trashed. It is mostly a giant black sploch that covers about 96% of the screen. However, it does work fine with an external display. question: How can I tell which parts of the LCD package are good or bad? i.e. is replacing the LCD screen enough? how to determine of the inverter is OK? any thing else I could have trashed, given that the external video is fine? Last question: anyone know the location of service manual pages on replacing the LCD?
September 6th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
thank you for the tips
September 4th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Hello, i would just like to ask, how much will it cost to fix my notebook, its inner screen cracked quite badly.. and its not my property, i have to fix it before returing .. anyone?
August 24th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
The step-by-step photos are great. I had no trouble doing this on a Latitude D630–just slight differences here and there. No success, though: unfortunately, the film layers of the “background” have acquired some weird flaws I can’t clear away with a dry cloth. So I still have speckles
But this is not the fault of your very clear instructions, so thank you anyway!
July 14th, 2011 at 2:45 am
My notebook screen has been cracked, but still it is working. The problem is that the crack appears to be very irritating while using notebook, please tell me about the solution?
June 23rd, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Hi,
My laptop turns on, then the screen goes black. I can use an external monitor and everything works fine. I can occasionally get the laptop screen to start working momentarily, but then it will switch off after a few seconds. Could this be a problem with the inverter? ANy help is appreciated. Thank you
April 5th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
THANK YOU.
Just replaced my D610 screen,. No Problems, only Solutions,. works Perfect,. and it was Free,.. Thank You kindly for the information,..
Vancouver BC.
March 31st, 2011 at 11:09 am
Dave,
I hope your new pars are good.
If you replaced inverter and backlight but the problem is still there, it could be one of the following:
1. Stuck lid close switch. If your laptop has an old good physical lid close switch button, make sure it’s not stuck inside the case.
2. Bad connection between the video cable and motherboard (or video card). Try reconnecting the cable.
3. Bad video cable.
4. Motherboard failure.
I really cannot give you a good advice without testing laptop with known good parts.
March 29th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Hay man, thanks for the guide. Unfortunately I have replaced inverter and bulb and still have the same problem. Nearly black screen with faint outlining of log in screen. Any ideas? Thanks dave