Dell Inspiron 1720 with Dim Screen

I am working on a Dell Inspiron 1720, the screen has gone very dark. It is like it is running at 50% brightness. It has been like this for about about a year. I want to fix it but I am unsure what the actual problem is. I am thinking it may be the backlight. Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

Can you still adjust the brightness? It could be an inverter or backlight problem... not always easy to tell with this display issues.

 

I can still adjust the brightness, I just can't get it to a point where it is bright enough. It is quite dark, dark enough that it is very hard to read text on the screen.

 

Yeah, could be the backlight. I've heard that they're supposed to dim over time, but I've never really noticed the phenomenon. You could try replacing the inverter simply because it's easier to replace (and cheap to replace) before trying to replace the backlight/buy a new display.

 

Thanks for responding. A bad inverter makes sense. I am in Canada, can anyone recommend a good place to order from.

A further note... I was in the bios, checking to make sure the screen brightness was turned all the way up, it was. It was noticeable while in there that the screen is brighter on the left hand side. It gets darker about 1/3 of the way across. I should also add that the left side that is lighter is still very dark though.

Cheers

 

I have been reading on this board and on others and one thing I want to try prior to ordering parts is to remove the LCD cables from the motherboard and put them back on again to make sure it is not a connection issue. I tried to remove one of them, the one that is exposed when the top cover plate is removed and was not able to do it. It has a wire handle on with a piece of tape attached. I gave it a pretty good pull and it did not give. I do not want to break anything, there does not appear to be any latches to unclip. Maybe I just need to pull harder... Can anyone advise, are they normally really hard to remove?

 

See the 1720 service manual. I believe it's pretty easy here...

Documentation

 

Thanks... I guess I just need to pull harder.

 

I have an Inspiron 1520, and I recall the handle you are talking about (approximately under the upper-right part of the keyboard, right?). IIRC, that one was a bit tough to remove, and connected the display to the graphics card. I think it also said Wanshih Corporation on it? It does take some effort to remove. I wouldn't just yank it, as that could cause damage if it doesn't detach from the GPU, but do expect it to offer some resistance. Sorry I can't be more specific, as it's been more than half a year since I removed that cable.

On the whole, the deconstruction of the display assembly is pretty straightforward right up until the point where you have the actual LCD separated from the inverter, the metal frame, the wires, et. al. You will need a good, quite small screwdriver, though (smaller than what you need for regular chassis disassembly). I stopped at the actual screen, as I wasn't actually replacing anything, but up until that point, there wasn't anything particularly tricky.

 

Thanks Apollo13

My plan now is to take it apart and remove the backlight(s) and determine what size they are. Order new one(s) and see if that fixes the probelm. They are fairly inexpensive to replace so I think it is the logical place to start. I put one in an NEC monitor a few years back and it is still working. I paid 1300 for that monitor way back when but that is another story.

Cheers