- In this sub lesson, we're going to take apart the laptop
and get at the display.
We have to remove the bezel to do this.
This can get a little bit hairy
when you're working on laptops,
so you gotta be patient and just take it step by step.
Let's begin.
Every laptop's different, and some are easier
to take apart than others.
For this particular laptop, we've got these little pads
which cover the screws.
So you kind of have to pull those off,
and then you can unscrew each of these,
and then you can take the entire bezel off,
and then you'll be able to unscrew the monitor from there.
Now, I've covered the actual display with paper
just in case, because, you know,
if you're using a screwdriver you don't wanna
go up against this display by mistake.
So, a little extra protection there,
put some, ah, regular 8-1/2 x 11 paper on there.
And you'll find that it usually sticks right to the screen
because of static, um,
but you can tape it on if you have to.
And be careful when you're removing the bezel.
You might have a webcam or something like that,
so you want to be careful to pull everything away
at the same time.
The webcam may connect with a little flex connector,
so you want to watch for that kind of thing.
Remember, when opening a laptop,
you have to employ anti-static methods.
Very important.
Use that anti-static strap, and if you're working
with any equipment like hard drives or RAM,
make sure you keep those inside of an anti-static bag
until you're ready to install them.
Also, you may wanna use an anti-static mat.
However, in this case, there's not going to be anywhere
for you to connect the alligator clip from that
anti-static mat, so you're gonna need another source,
another grounding source to connect to.
And a computer case would be fine for that
if you have one that's open.
Just make sure that you're connecting to the chassis.
So, make sure you employ anti-static methods
when working on the laptop.
Okay, so here's another laptop, and we've taken
the bezel off here, and once you do
you can actually remove the display if necessary,
and you've got some screws here that have to be removed,
and some connections.
Now, before you do any of that,
you want to make sure that you have your anti-static strap,
and there's two reasons for that.
One, ah, you want to protect,
just in case you touch a circuit board,
you want to protect those circuit boards,
and you don't wanna discharge to them.
But two, ah, if you're working with the power connections
for a display or the inverter,
then you want to make sure
that you have something like this.
One, it'll provide a path to ground for any electricity,
and two, um, these devices, these anti-static straps
often have a one megaohm resistor,
so that can help protect you against
any type of spike or shock.
So anyways, to remove these,
you have to remove all the screws, obviously,
and then we have the data connection for the display,
and that's here, it's a flex connector.
We can pull that out with this,
try to pull it out evenly,
and that pulled that out right there.
Okay, and you can see the connector.
This is one of the most common culprits for, ah, no display,
and it's the video connector's loose or damaged.
Ah, and that happens, you know.
It could creep out because the humidity changed real quick,
or pressure changes, let's say the laptop was taken
on a plane or it was in some type of other transit.
So, that can come loose a little bit.
I've fixed this three or four times
in the past year for people,
and I'm not a laptop tech.
That's not what I do right now.
But, ah, you know I'll get, ah, various people saying,
hey, my laptop's not working,
the display isn't doing anything
but it sounds like it's running.
And it's like, well, the first thing
I'm gonna check is this guy.
And this could be here underneath the keyboard,
or it could be, ah, in underneath the bezel,
you know, in a different circuit board.
Depends on the laptop.
Quite often, it's under here.
So, you have to disconnect that data connection,
but also the power connection.
And this is uses a black wire and a white wire,
and these actually pull apart,
and so you wanna pull apart the black wire first,
and again, make sure you have some type of path to ground
and that one megaohm resistor,
and then pull the white wire apart.
And then you'll pull those out of here,
and pull the whole display out.
Now, what could go wrong with the displays?
There's a couple things that could go wrong.
First of all, the video adapter could fail.
If you have a separate video adapter, um,
you can replace that, but in a lot of cases
it'll be integrated to the CPU.
The GPU processing will be integrated to the CPU,
so that CPU will have to be replaced,
or the entire CPU and motherboard will have to be replaced.
So, that's, you know, that makes it more difficult.
In other cases, it could be a mini PCI express card
that's controlling video.
There's a couple different options there.
But if that happens, you know,
if that video adapter goes bad,
you will be able to tell because you won't get anything
on your main display, and you also won't get anything
on an external display, quite often, ah,
if you have one connected via HDMI or something.
Now, let's say you see nothing on this display,
but the external display does work.
Well, then that means a couple other things
could have gone wrong.
The display itself could have failed,
which honestly I don't see that as much anymore.
I don't see it as often as I did five or ten years ago.
Another possibility is the inverter failed,
or the power circuit board that these
power connections goes to,
these power connections go to has failed.
How do you know the difference between the two?
Well, if the display fails, you will get nothing.
You will be able to see nothing on the display at all.
If the inverter fails, and this changes the voltage in here
ah, so that the display can register properly,
if that fails, you might see a very dim display,
or, ah, if you can't, you can still try to see it
by taking the laptop into a dark room
and flashing a flashlight against it
while the system's running.
If you can see Windows or whatever other operating system
on here very dimly with the flashlight,
because that will reflect back off of the display, ah,
and show you what's happening,
if you can see that then you know the display is okay,
and it's either the inverter has failed
or something else has failed in here power wise,
probably the inverter.
On this particular device,
the inverter could be replaced separately.
On other laptops, it has to be replaced by
removing the whole display anyway,
so it all depends on the laptop.
So, what are the things that could fail?
Once again, the video adapter itself could fail,
which could be integrated to the motherboard or to the CPU,
but the most common thing that I see is that flex connector.
You've gotta make sure that that is connected
real solid and tight, make sure everything's flat,
and check that wire too, make sure it's in its wire guide,
so that it doesn't get damaged.
So, when you put everything back together,
everything's nice and flat.
Again, in addition, the display itself could fail,
in which case it has to be replaced,
or the inverter could fail, and in some cases
that can be replaced separately.
You've gotta be very careful with the inverter.
In some cases, ah, you connect those with the screw and
their housed in a metal housing here,
but in other cases, ah, the inverter is just a card,
and you have to actually replace the whole,
the card by itself.
You wanna be real careful not to touch anything
on that device, especially when removing it.
Um, so that's a possibility as well,
without having to remove the display.
And you might have a problem with the power connection,
maybe that's loose.
Or the circuit board that the power connections go to
might have to be swapped out,
that's usually just a screw or two,
and a power connector.
Ah, and then there's the lid switch.
Every laptop has a lid switch, which tells the system
to shut off when it's closed, shut off the power
to the display when it's closed,
and turn on the power to the display when it's open.
And sometimes that'll fail, when you open the laptop
you get nothing on the display,
so you can check the lid switch as well.
Here's an example of lid switches.
And this is a really powerful system,
this is a really tough system right here.
You can see that's a pretty powerful mechanism.
The chances of that failing are slim to none, but it could,
and so you have to check that.
Maybe it's stuck, or maybe the switch needs to be replaced.
And sometimes you'll see this referred to
as the LCD lid switch, and it could just be a little button,
could be a little tiny button, ah, in the corner
that is depressed when this closes.
And this is a much more powerful version of that,
but it all depends on the laptop.
It could even be activated in a magnetic way.
So it all depends on which laptop you have.
So check the LCD switch,
make sure that's functioning properly,
whether it's down here in the corner,
or whether it's up here,
and make sure that's actually working right.
That could be the culprit as well.
You might have to go onto the motherboard
and reconnect the, ah, connector for that,
so that's another possibility.
Let's take a look at one more laptop,
and talk about the bezel.
Now, sometimes you have a really thin bezel,
and it can be very difficult to get that off.
And sometimes you have to actually pry it from the back
in between the two pieces of plastic.
Sometimes you have to disconnect something here, from the,
ah, right here from the hinge.
Sometimes you have to pry in from a certain area
where there's an opening and then start moving around
very slowly, and you want the thinnest shim
you could possibly get that's either wood or plastic
so you don't damage this.
You might even use a credit card
or something else like that.
Ah, it could be very difficult to remove these bezels
when they're this thin, especially if you have a
MacBook Air or something like that.
And it's really recommended that you just take those
to an authorized repair center.
So, in some cases you don't actually even have any screws,
you just have a bezel that has to be removed
in order to get to the display, or get to that inverter,
um, so you gotta be real careful with that.
Sometimes the connection, the power connection,
and the data connection which goes through here
can get damaged just from use, just from
opening and closing, and you know, usage of the hinge.
So, sometimes that has to be replaced as well.
Not the hinge, but the power cable,
and/or the data connection.
So, be real careful when you're working with these bezels,
make sure that you use a very thin shim,
and, ah, you know, just work it one little bit at a time.
You're gonna have to find that opening, ah,
and it's gonna be different from one laptop to the next.
And honestly, the displays don't go bad as often.
Especially now we're moving past LCD,
we're getting into LED LCDs, and OLEDs,
and all these displays.
They last longer, they don't fail as much,
you don't get any bad pixels anymore.
That kind of stuff's a thing of the past, really, so,
unless it's damaged, you know, and that's why
you've gotta be real careful with these displays.
So, that's about it for displays.