# Damn, Dropped May Laptop...Now have a Dark screen



## hickpick (Jul 17, 2004)

I had my Dell Latitude Laptop in a duffel bag and it slid off the top of my suitcase and fell about 2 feet to the floor in the lobby of a hotel while I was checking out.

When I got my laptop home and turned it on it booted up ok, but the screen is now black...I can barely make out the Windows XP logo and my destop icons.

Any suggestions on what might of happened on impact and how I might be able to fix it??

This makes me sick...here it is Thanksgiving weekend and I'll not be able to get it looked at until next Mon. if I need to take it to someone.

Any home remedies that I might be able to try out on my own would be greatly appreciated.

I searched and found posts about the backlight and inverter...could the drop have caused this problem?

Thanks.


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

The backlight on most laptops uses one or more glass fluorescent lamps. A big enough mechanical shock could crack or shatter them. It is possible to just replace the lamps but you need a source of parts and some disassembly of the laptop's top cover and disassembly of the LCD display module itself. The fact that you can see the logo and icons is a good sign that the rest of the hardware (LCD glass of the display, the motherboard and hard drive) survived the fall.


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## hickpick (Jul 17, 2004)

Chuck, so I'm pretty much going to have to take it to someone to have it fixed. Doesn't sound by your post that it's something I can figure out on my own......crap.

It appears that all is fine with the actual screen and it boots up fine...if I shine a flashlight on the screen everything appears in order...it's just black if you don't shine a light on it.

So nothing I can check out myself?? I was hoping it would be a simple little fix...like something got knocked lose, etc.

Thanks.


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

There is always the chance that you did knock a connection loose inside the laptop. The fluorescent backlight lamps are powered by a high voltage DC/AC inverter that should be near the LCD display module inside the lid. The inverter is typically a long skinny PC board with connectors on each end. Two high voltage wires per lamp (some displays may use two or more) from the display plug into one end and a low voltage DC power and control cable from the mother board plugs into the other end. If any of those connections come loose, the backlight will not light up.

Replacing the lamp(s) inside the LCD module can be a delicate operation to prevent damaging the rest of the display. On the other hand replacing the entire LCD module (Display glass, electronics and and backlight) might be a bit easier but the whole module would be much more expensive than just the lamps.

As a temporary work around, can you plug an external monitor into the laptop?


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## hickpick (Jul 17, 2004)

There are some used complete LCD assemblies on ebay for my type of laptop. How hard is it to just swap out the entire top portion of the laptop? Anyone know??
Thanks


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## hickpick (Jul 17, 2004)

I put a new inverter in my laptop and the backlight does NOT still come on. Any other suggestions?

I don't see where the lamps that actually light up are even at on this laptop.

Thanks


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