Repaired: One LCD Screen

Thursday 16 March 2006 - Filed under Default

I just fixed my laptop’s screen! I noticed that it started up with a pink tint long ago and more recently it started flickering. About a week ago it finally went black. I thought, maybe I’ll just plug it into an external screen and call it a desktop…or I could order a new screen assembly. My screen is 1400×1050 so I knew that wouldn’t be cheap. Then, I remembered reading an article over at hackaday.com on fixing lcd monitors with cheap parts so I went back to it and also read another article on replacing the mercury cold-cathode tuble

I started by taking the screen out and apart which took a lot of careful unscrewing, bending and cajoling. After digging into it for about a half-hour I got to the burnt-out cold cathode tube. I found a replacement part online by looking for my laptop’s model number and ordered one to be shipped out three-day for $25 total.

Today I received and unwrapped the tube to find it didn’t come with a connector on it. That meant I was going to have to do some soldering. I’m no expert solderer but I managed to detach the wires from the old tube and solder them onto the new one without too much trouble. I was even able to use the solder and wire from the previous tube assembly thereby saving myself a trip to the store for wire and solder. The hardest part came next…getting the tube and all the layers of the lcd screen(I counted 5) to fit back into it’s metal frame. Once I got that done, I put the laptop back together and powered it up.

Now as you can imagine having never worked on a hack like this, my expectations were low….along the lines of a puff of smoke or maybe even some sparks! Much to my chagrin, no smoke, no sparks, and the screen powered on brighter than ever. I’m looking at it now and I can’t say when it ever looked this good. Guess all those years of taking apart radios and remote controls finally paid off!

2006-03-16  »  David Sterry