In this guide I will disassemble a laptop LCD screen in order to remove and replace the backlight lamp (CCFL).
Replacing the backlight lamp is not an easy task even for experienced technicians. If you do something wrong you will permanently damage the LCD screen and have to buy a new one. Proceed on your own risk and do not blame me. 
Some recommendations before you start:
1. Work in a clean room. You don’t want dust and lint inside your LCD screen.
2. Make notes, so you know how to assemble your screen back.
3. Take pictures.
4. Before you remove something, take a closer look at the part and memorize how it is assembled.
5. When you are assembling the screen, remove dust and lint with compressed air. Do not use cloth.
The backlight lamp (CCFL) is located inside the LCD screen, so we are going to take it apart. In this article I’m not going to explain how to remove LCD from a laptop, it’s been covered before.
Here some examples:
Removing LCD screen from a Dell laptop.
Taking apart IBM ThinkPad display panel.
Removing screen from Toshiba laptops.
Remove sticky tape and foil from the back of the screen and glue it somewhere so you can reuse it later, when you assemble the screen.
Removing tape from the backlight cables.
On my screen the green circuit board was glued to the plastic frame with a double sided tape. Carefully unglue the circuit board. Be very careful, do not flex or bend the circuit board.
The circuit board has been unglued.
Place the LCD screen on the side and start removing the metal frame witch secures the LCD to the plastic frame. There will be many latches on all sides of the frame, you can unlock them with a small screwdriver.
Continue separating the metal frame from the plastic base.
On the following picture you can see that frame, LCD with the circuit board and screen base have been separated. Be careful, do not touch internal components with your fingers. Handle all internal components by the sides.
Place the metal frame and LCD with the circuit board aside. You’ll need them only when you assemble everything back together.
There will be a few transparent layers inside. Carefully remove them from the screen base. Do not separate the layers, just put them aside together.
Keep everything organized, so you have no trouble assembling the screen.
Start removing the metal cover from the backlight lamp (CCFL).
The backlight cover has been removed.
The backlight lamp (CCFL) cables are routed through small plastic hooks.
Unroute the backlight lamp cables.
Now probably the hardest part in this disassembly process – removing the backlight lamp and reflector. The backlight lamp is secured inside the reflector so you have to remove both and then separate them.
Before you remove the backlight lamp and reflector take a closer look how it’s assembled and mounted to the screen base. Fitting the backlight and reflector back in place could be a very challenging task.
The reflector is glued to the screen base with a double sided tape.
After the reflector has been unattached from the screen base, you can start removing the backlight lamp. As you see on the picture, I marked the left side of the reflector with a red dot so I know where the red cable goes when I assemble everything back together.
The backlight lamp (CCFL) has been removed from the reflector.
In order to access the backlight lamp leads you’ll have to remove the rubber caps from both side of the lamp. I’m not sure if you can touch the backlight lamp with your fingers, so I would use rubber gloves.
Cabled on both sides of the backlight lamp are soldered to the backlight leads. In order to access the leads you’ll have to remove the black insulator on both side of the lamp.
Unsolder both cables from the old backlight lamp and solder them to a new one.
You can test the new backlight lamp (CCFL) before you install it back into the screen. Connect the backlight lamp into the inverter board and turn on the laptop. The backlight lamp should light up.
From my experience, on some laptops the backlight lamp will not light up until the video cable is connected to the LCD screen. In this case you’ll have to assemble the LCD screen and then test it.
You can search for a new CCFL backlight lamp here.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
March 9th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I have no idea what to do next.
I originally had an Acer laptop with cracked LCD. Ordered one on ebay and replaced it. Before putting everything back together, I tested and sure enough, everything worked fine.
But after I reassembled the front, I got low backlight problem. Tried cracked LCD and also had low backlight. I figured it has to be the inverter right? Bought one from ebay, got it today, installed it and still low backlight.
Is it the laptop? The inverter? Or am I just that unlucky and the CCFL for both LCD screens broke at the same time?
Any idea?
Thank you.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Paul,
Most likely the CCFL tube is bad and has to be replaced. You’ve done most work. Now just buy a new tube and test it. They are not expensive.
I think there is no difference. Just buy the right size.
I’ve been using the same CCFL tube for testing many different laptops and it works fine.
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:03 am
Hi there,
Thank you so much for such a clear guide. I have just used it to strip out my ccfl.
I wonder if you could further advise me on this ccfl tube problem?
I have a dell inspiron 8600 laptop with a 15.4 wuxga screen and the ccfl tube stopped working. After asking for some advice, I replaced the inverter with a new one but still nothing so I stripped out the ccfl tube.
I plugged the inverter and ccfl tube back in, independent from the lcd screen so I could see what was going on and I found that the tube lights up for just a split second when I power on the laptop. Then nothing. This will happen every time the laptop is restarted, just a brief, split second flash from the tube which is around 5 years old.
I am currently using a second desk standing lcd through a vga cable and that works perfectly so I guess my graphics card is fine?
Can you comment on what you think the problem may be?
The tube is 5 years old and was giving a pink hue for around 2 weeks before the screen went dark.
I have read that once you get the pink hue, the tube is on its way out and tries to draw too much current, causing the inverter safety circuit to cut in. Im just confused that the tube works for just this split second every time the laptop is powered up.
I will go get a new ccfl but I would like to also know if my wuxga requires a specific tube as opposed to say, an wxga of the same size.
Many thanks in advance,
Paul
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Thanks for this info on replacing the CCFL. I followed your instructions and was able to fix my friends laptop. The screen had a pink hue to it and would then go dark.
To add a point or two, with my friend’s Dell I did have to have the LCD screen connected to test the lamp. Also, the lamp seemed to have an electrical positive and negative so if it doesn’t light up while testing, change the wires around.
Thanks again!