LCD wont light, ready to pull my hair out!!!

[MikeSantor]

so a quick synopsis.

Bought a macbook with a busted LCD. Model MA255ll/A. Ran into a ******** of problems unrelated to the LCD so im already frustrated. I had to order a new lid AFTER the new LCD got here so I Proped up the LCD panel and hooked it up to the macbook to make sure everything was working. Used it like this for a few days and everything was working great.

Today the lid (part with the glowing apple logo) came so I unhooked everythin and disconnected the power. I Got the back/lid screwed into the metal hinges, plugged in all the wired to the LCD and power converter and turned it on, lit up beautifly.

I unplugged the power again, screwed the LCD to the lid, put the cover/bezel on the power converter and put the bezel around the whole LCD turned it on and no back light.

I go to close the screen to look at the back part and as soon as the lid got about an inch from being closed the back light comes on. then as soon as its all the way shut it goes off.

So I slowly open it and again it lights up till it gets to about an inch open then it goes off.

I did this about 10 times then it completly stopped lighting up at all. even durring that inch before it was closed when it was lighting up.

I completly dissasembled the top half for the 5 time today and all the connections are good, the wires are good, the power inverter looks good. The ONLY thing I can think of is somehow the power inverter went bad but it worked fine, I screwed in the LCD and put on the inverter bezel and the screen bezel and it stopped working. Im really confused at this point.

Anyone have any ideas because after all the **** i have had to do to get this mac up and running, im honestly in all seriousness about to just throw it out my window. at this point that would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside...

EDIT, Forgot to mention I hooked up the OEM cracked LCD and it DOSNT light up either so It kind of narrows the LCD as the problem out of the equation...

 

[andalusia]

I'm afraid to say I have no solutions to your problems, I do have one small piece of advice though.

Do not, I repeat, do not throw it out of the Window! I beg of you, it's just not worth it!

 

[MikeSantor]

I'm afraid to say I have no solutions to your problems, I do have one small piece of advice though.

Do not, I repeat, do not throw it out of the Window! I beg of you, it's just not worth it!

Im really holding back.

 

[MacLovin78]

I have never replaced an LCD before but it seems to me that if it was coming on when it was only an inch open and going off when you opened it further that something to deal with the closing mechanism is reversed. Is it possible that you connected a cable backwards or something?

 

[MikeSantor]

I have never replaced an LCD before but it seems to me that if it was coming on when it was only an inch open and going off when you opened it further that something to deal with the closing mechanism is reversed. Is it possible that you connected a cable backwards or something?

I dont think so. I have checked and double checked all the wiring. plus all the plugs will only go in one way.

 

[MikeSantor]

just bought a new LCD inverter off the BAY. Only thing I can think is I shocked the one I have.

Inverter was only 14 shipped pulled from another mac so we will see...

 

[MikeSantor]

time for applecare right about now.

my cousin who is a photographer/mac fanboy said i can bring it in to the mac store (5 minutes from my house) and the genius bar will look at it for free. even if its not under warranty they will give me advice. I Just dont see how they would do that. I take in a mac thats all disassembled and say hey its not working. there going to point me over to the new macbook section...

 

[Tomorrow]

It was broken when you bought it?

 

[l.a.rossmann]

On that model the inverter board is uncomfortably jammed into position. the inverter board wires also have poor clearance as well, they have very little space to rest between the bottom of the back casing(the thing with the apple light on it) and the frame the LCD is screwed to.

Do you have the inverter board wires going under the LCD or behind the LCD? Is it getting sliced by some piece of bottom frame and hanging on by a thread, or shorting to the frame?

Also, the inverter board has some wirewound resistor or inductor soldered to it, it is the piece that would receive pressure if the inverter board was shoved into place. It is the largest device on the board, around the middle, and sticks up. There are three or four legs next to it. When you put the hinge cover back on, you can easily hit it against this stuff which loosens solder joints. It's a simple fix if you have a fine tipped(read: not radioshack) iron and some good solder.

About 30% of the stuff I get to fix comes from customers who tried to fix it themselves, so I have to figure out what they did wrong to cause it to not work. I created a system whereby when I attempt to fix a new model, I buy a broken one to experiment on, and purposely try to fix it in a quick and impatient manner, sometimes considerably drunk. It sounds odd, but this way so I can find where all the mistakes will get made due to carelessness or bad lighting or improper force and then I know what to check for and be careful of when fixing someone else's.

When the backlight doesn't come on 50% of the time it's always one of the above problems.

I wish you luck in getting the machine up and running.

 

[MikeSantor]

On that model the inverter board is uncomfortably jammed into position. the inverter board wires also have poor clearance as well, they have very little space to rest between the bottom of the back casing(the thing with the apple light on it) and the frame the LCD is screwed to.

Do you have the inverter board wires going under the LCD or behind the LCD? Is it getting sliced by some piece of bottom frame and hanging on by a thread, or shorting to the frame?

Also, the inverter board has some wirewound resistor or inductor soldered to it, it is the piece that would receive pressure if the inverter board was shoved into place. It is the largest device on the board, around the middle, and sticks up. There are three or four legs next to it. When you put the hinge cover back on, you can easily hit it against this stuff which loosens solder joints. It's a simple fix if you have a fine tipped(read: not radioshack) iron and some good solder.

About 30% of the stuff I get to fix comes from customers who tried to fix it themselves, so I have to figure out what they did wrong to cause it to not work. I created a system whereby when I attempt to fix a new model, I buy a broken one to experiment on, and purposely try to fix it in a quick and impatient manner, sometimes considerably drunk. It sounds odd, but this way so I can find where all the mistakes will get made due to carelessness or bad lighting or improper force and then I know what to check for and be careful of when fixing someone else's.

When the backlight doesn't come on 50% of the time it's always one of the above problems.

I wish you luck in getting the machine up and running.

I have the inverter board wires running behind the LCD. when I was putting everything back together, I believe its the wire running from the camera up top (im going off memory as the laptop isnt here now) is long enough so I could run it up the side but the other wire (which should be the inverter wire, on left side if looking at the laptop opened) was not long enough to run up the side.

Is this wire supposed to be ran up the side?

the only way I could get this thing back together was to put everything together minus the front bezel and then put on the pice in the middle that covers up the inverter. Its real hard to do because of the shape of it. Your really have to jam it in there.

I think it has to go together this way because you have to screw through the metal hinges that are covered up by that inverter cover. so you have to put the pack on first then the inverter cover.

again the problem you run into is it really is a tight fit and you are kind of bending the plastic inverter cover to get it snapped back around the center.

well the new inverter is comming sometime this comming week so we will see.

Thanks for the advice.

BTW, how much would you charge to get this thing working if all else fails?

 

[l.a.rossmann]

I don't remove the inverter cover. It is a really poorly designed portion of the machine. One person I got who cracked their screen once a year ago, it was apparent the inverter cover had been removed to get to the inverter since behind the laptop, where it becomes flush with the backing(the thing with the glowing apple on it), it was not clicked in right.

I hate this piece for that reason. I never remove it, I slice & clean w/ 91% isopropyl alcohol and use tightly fitting heatshrink around the new wire. This is the only model where I do that, because this piece is so fragile. This way you can never tell it was removed from the back, which I like, and it also lessens the chances of hurting the inverter board. My guess is you hit the inverter somewhere. It is easy to hit a part of the inverter board and cause an intermittent connection between a part on the inverter board and the inverter board.

I was talking about the wire for the inverter board, not for the webcam. The wire from the inverter board to the LCD. You can either put it behind the LCD(the wrong way, it causes the bottom right to bulge), or use a tool to guide it under the LCD, so it sits at the bottom between the bottom of the LCD and the bottom of the back.

How much it'd cost depends on how much is destroyed, so I'd have to see it. I think I'm a fair guy.

 

[MikeSantor]

I don't remove the inverter cover. It is a really poorly designed portion of the machine. One person I got who cracked their screen once a year ago, it was apparent the inverter cover had been removed to get to the inverter since behind the laptop, where it becomes flush with the backing(the thing with the glowing apple on it), it was not clicked in right.

I hate this piece for that reason. I never remove it, I slice & clean w/ 91% isopropyl alcohol and use tightly fitting heatshrink around the new wire. This is the only model where I do that, because this piece is so fragile. This way you can never tell it was removed from the back, which I like, and it also lessens the chances of hurting the inverter board. My guess is you hit the inverter somewhere. It is easy to hit a part of the inverter board and cause an intermittent connection between a part on the inverter board and the inverter board.

I was talking about the wire for the inverter board, not for the webcam. The wire from the inverter board to the LCD. You can either put it behind the LCD(the wrong way, it causes the bottom right to bulge), or use a tool to guide it under the LCD, so it sits at the bottom between the bottom of the LCD and the bottom of the back.

How much it'd cost depends on how much is destroyed, so I'd have to see it. I think I'm a fair guy.

Correct me if Im wrong but if you are changing the lid dont you HAVE to take off the inverter cover? because the lid gets screwed in through the metal hinges thats behind the inverter cover. At least the 1 furthest screw to the inside (2 middle ones basically) are behind the inverter and theres obviously no way to screw/unscrew them with the inverter cover on.

Ill give it a go when the next inverter gets here. Its either that or the wires so... we'll see how I do the second time.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

Ah. I thought you were just replacing the LCD for a second there. It's getting late.

I have yet to have to remove the inverter cover on that model to replace the LCD. If I were replacing the entire top lid, then yes, you must.

 

[MikeSantor]

Ah. I thought you were just replacing the LCD for a second there. It's getting late.

I have yet to have to remove the inverter cover on that model to replace the LCD. If I were replacing the entire top lid, then yes, you must.

Yea when I took the thing apart to replace the LCD almost all the nuts on the lid had busted. there were 3 left to hold the whold LCD and hinges to the lid. So I had to buy a lid from the BAY. I went to screw it to the hingses and saw the inverter cover in the way. Thus starting the next headaches...

Then on top of that the harddrive was completly wiped when I got it so I had to buy a copy of leopard. Like I said, it has been one thing after another with this...

 

[l.a.rossmann]

Let's give a macbook a name, call it macbook A.

Macbook A has a broken screen, and on eBay, it sells for $510, plus $15 shipping. I am outbid after bidding $500.

It costs at least $50 to put some sort of LCD into it. So bring total cost to $550. More for the average joe.

It will go for $500-$550 on craigslist, and no more.

Buying broken to fix them for profit, or to save money off buying a working model only works if you grab it broken for way under its sale value on ebay. Take it from me. The experience on all the broken macbooks was from buying and fixing them for other people. There were so many lies on what was broken that each item would require some detective work. After a few months of torture on evilbay, I decided to only work repairing on spot, to save myself the misery.

 

[MikeSantor]

Let's give a macbook a name, call it macbook A.

Macbook A has a broken screen, and on eBay, it sells for $510, plus $15 shipping. I am outbid after bidding $500.

It costs at least $50 to put some sort of LCD into it. So bring total cost to $550. More for the average joe.

It will go for $500-$550 on craigslist, and no more.

Buying broken to fix them for profit, or to save money off buying a working model only works if you grab it broken for way under its sale value on ebay. Take it from me. The experience on all the broken macbooks was from buying and fixing them for other people. There were so many lies on what was broken that each item would require some detective work. After a few months of torture on evilbay, I decided to only work repairing on spot, to save myself the misery.

Yea I would never do this for monitary gain.I have been a pc user my whole life and didn't want to spend 1000 on a new mac just to try osx. So I payed 300 for this one with a busted lcd.

 

[MikeSantor]

So I Finally got frustrated enough to do something drastic. I refrained from throwing it out the window, So I beheaded it...

Packed the main computer up in a closet and have the beheaded macbook hooked up. Now I just have to learn how to use OS X. I had to geek out and go to the bookstore and pick up the missing manual after a half hour of trying to figure out how to rename a file...

If I end up liking OS X im going to nut up and buy a working macbook 13 uni.

L.A., Interested in purchasing some parts cheap? I just purchased the LCD and Inverter a week and a half ago. ill let em go cheap if your interested. Shoot me a email at msantor@gmail.com if you are interested.

Thanks for all the help.