Well, I made the mistake of leaving my laptop on the piano bench, and my youngest daughter knocked it onto the floor. When I tried to start it up, there was a big vertical white stripe down the middle of the screen.
When you have laptop screen issues, the first thing you want to do is try to figure out if you broke the screen itself, or if you broke something inside the computer. The easiest way to do this is to connect your laptop to your tv with an HDMI cable. If the computer is busted, the image on your tv will look crappy. If it's only your laptop screen that is broken, the image on the tv will look perfectly normal.
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| My laptop |
In my case, it was the screen that was broken. That was good news, because a new screen can be purchased for about $100. That's significantly cheaper than paying a repair person or replacing the laptop. I bought my replacement screen from NewEgg.
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| All the tools I need! |
All it takes to replace the screens in most laptops is a screwdriver and a guitar pick. If you are taking your laptop apart, follow these steps, but do so at your own risk. This could void your warranty, or cause permanent damage to your laptop if you aren't careful.
1) Power down your computer. All the way. Turn it off!
2) Find a clean, level, static-free work area. Flip your laptop upside down.
3) Draw a diagram of the bottom of your laptop. Include screw locations. As you remove each screw, tape it to your diagram in the appropriate location, so that you know exactly where it goes when you put your laptop back together.
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| Bottom of Laptop |
4) Different laptops are put together differently. I just pulled out every screw that seemed like it was holding the laptop case in place, and ignored any screws that looked like they were holding internal components in place. Once all of the screws have been removed, if the bottom portion of the laptop doesn't lift easily, carefully slide the guitar pick along the seam between the bottom and top portion of the laptop to separate the pieces.
5) At this point, it's a really good idea to disconnect the battery. Otherwise, you might fry your new screen. I actually don't know if this is possible with a laptop screen, but I definitely friend a cell phone screen by not disconnecting the battery. So I like to play it safe. Once you find the battery, it should be easy/obvious to disconnect. The battery will probably look something like this:
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| Laptop Battery |
6) The front and back of the laptop lid should pop apart pretty easily, by using the same guitar pick technique that you used earlier. Once the front face is removed, the screen should be easy to remove. Unplug the old screen, remove a couple screws, and you are good to go.
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| Info on back of the screen |
7) Here's the back of the new screen. You can see that it contains information about the make/model, so you can make sure that you are ordering the right replacement part. At the bottom, you can see the little port where the cable connects from the computer to the screen.
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| Front of screen |
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| Back of screen |
8)That's about all there is too it. Plug in the new screen (making sure that the cable is plugged in the correct orientation). Screw it back in place. Snap the cover back on. Put the battery back in. Replace all the screws in reverse order that you removed them.
9) Power your laptop on, and you are good to go!
Total Time: ~ 1 hour (not counting order/arrival time for replacement screen)
Total Cost: $100
Total Difficulty: Med
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