Re: Replacing CCFL backlight in laptop displays??

Posted on 41 minutes ago

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, it's a tight space in the LCD area and it's part of an embedded system so a few parts to consider :) Since the backlighting is a full system on its own there's the CCFL, its inverter power supply, the controller for that. Sometimes the problems are not what you'd think, I just did a panel swap …

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Re: Replacing CCFL backlight in laptop displays??

Posted on 2023-05-28, 21:47

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it starts up really dim and isn't looking especially pink or red then the CCFL might be okay and it could be like shevalier says and just be the inverter or its power supply perhaps. Replacing the CCFL itself on a 14" LCD with thin bezels is tough and delicate work, the CCFL itself is quite thin …

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Re: Replacing CCFL backlight in laptop displays??

Posted on 2023-05-28, 18:27

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have some experience with upgrading a few of my 1995 to 2001-ish computers to LED backlighting. It's worth doing on some older ones but getting the right voltages and determining the signals that run the backlight can be tough - my older Toshibas run the backlight circuit at 5 volts and the …

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Re: Contura 3/25S no screen after cleaning & recapping

Posted on 2023-05-24, 23:24

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

In my case I was able to fix the damaged transistor because I have multiple Thinkpad 240 laptops and was able to work out the purpose of each pin from doing some probing. It was a transistor that ran the backlight enable signal that I'd damaged and it gave a lower voltage while my known good board …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-05-24, 21:37

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm packing things to go into storage since I'm going to be moving quite soon and I have enough time to finish up this project at least, a few months back I bought this Kapok 5400PT laptop - the flower means it's got a TFT and it's got a gamepad on the palm rest??? kapok-5400pt.jpg The four buttons …

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Re: Contura 3/25S no screen after cleaning & recapping

Posted on 2023-05-24, 01:09

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The discolouration on the traces surrounding where the capacitor leaked suggest a bad trace still. Have you tried scraping off the darkened green solder mask to see what the trace underneath looks like? Perhaps they need tinning up to get them back to normal or you might find a break. Did you reseat …

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Re: Very strange failure of PB450 Motherboard

Posted on 2023-05-24, 00:52

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Huh, I had that 386/486 mess of characters thing when I was playing about with feeding the CPU voltage from an external regulator. I thought I'd messed up the computer but clearing the CMOS got it back to working normally. How do you have the RTC battery connected. Is it going to the pins where the …

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Re: Very strange failure of PB450 Motherboard

Posted on 2023-05-23, 15:10

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Huh, I had that 386/486 mess of characters thing when I was playing about with feeding the CPU voltage from an external regulator. I thought I'd messed up the computer but clearing the CMOS got it back to working normally. How do you have the RTC battery connected. Is it going to the pins where the …

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Re: IBM PS/1 2155-593 Restoration

Posted on 2023-05-21, 01:09

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Just watched the video too, thanks for the mention on there epictronics :) It was a very well put together video and it's great that this is working in the way that I guessed from the pictures - an educated guess though, I've done similar things with my Toshiba T2130CS laptop. theelf: That's a …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-05-21, 00:55

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yay, my suggestions for Epictronic's 486 motherboard worked :) Also lately I've been running low on 1MB 30 pin simms, I even found a couple of dead ones - but I've got these stupid 256kb simms and they have extra solder pads... ram-upgrade-1.jpg 60ns and made in 1990? That's pretty fancy actually …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-05-19, 20:17

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you :) That's a big help. Lately I seem to have had a bit too much free time and I appear to be finding too many interesting items - somehow this IBM Thinkpad 760LD had been sitting available on ebay UK for an entire year for less than £30: IMG_1354 (Custom).JPG After some cleaning and repair, …

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Re: Toshiba T4700CT Floppy Drive Belt

Posted on 2023-05-19, 19:18

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've 3D printed some in TPU and they work with the EME278 that I was able to get working - one ended up being broken despite the new belt. The 3d printed belts aren't perfect because the surface of the belt facing the PCB can easily end up rubbing against the PCB because of how the belt routes. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-05-16, 12:08

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought an Abit AK3 that was labelled up as an Auva TAM 386. I wanted a 386 board that has physical cache and the possibility for a socket - all of my 386dx motherboards with cache chips don't have room for a CPU socket, but this one does: 1.jpg It was sold as for parts and wouldn't boot getting …

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Re: Brandnew handheld 386SX computers and 8088 laptops... from AliExpress?

Posted on 2023-05-15, 12:31

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think it's just the one guy that put most of this together, amazing. I was initially thinking that this might be for some industrial application but it appears it's someone in China that's passionate about retro hardware :) You can see the Book 8088 in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-05-15, 11:43

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Benched my DX4 Overdrive against the stock DX2 in my dell 466i. https://youtu.be/yL86qGZdJW0 Looks good, how is it in terms of heat? I've got a very similar Dell pizzabox case with the Netplex 4/25 which right now has a somewhat slower sx25. Does your one have a fan in the front possibly? The other …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-05-14, 00:48

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Benched my DX4 Overdrive against the stock DX2 in my dell 466i. https://youtu.be/yL86qGZdJW0 Looks good, how is it in terms of heat? I've got a very similar Dell pizzabox case with the Netplex 4/25 which right now has a somewhat slower sx25. Does your one have a fan in the front possibly? The other …

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Re: IBM PS/1 2155-593 Restoration

Posted on 2023-05-13, 23:38

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Forgot to annotate this bit: red line: S2 green line: S1 blue line: S0 Looks like you may want to upgrade the SRAM as well if you want to go for 33mhz bus speed or higher.

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Re: IBM PS/1 2155-593 Restoration

Posted on 2023-05-13, 23:08

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Thanks, that helps - check this out: tracing-imisc418.jpg This is only my guess at the moment but the lines match up too well. I think the R174 - R175 - R176 are the solder/component jumpers to specify the PLL frequency. They are like this between the two boards: -----PS/1 2155-593 DX33 ----- Your …

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Re: IBM PS/1 2155-593 Restoration

Posted on 2023-05-13, 22:04

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm working on a PS/1 2168 and the board looks identical to the board in this thread. However, my board is set to 25Mhz and there doesn't seem to be a jumper to change it to 33Mhz. The only difference I can spot int the picture is that the board in this thread has a jumper connected to j27 That's …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-05-12, 22:32

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That should be the PcPartner 35-8878 actually - it's the same as the 35-8954 pretty much except for the square footprint for the onboard sound that's not populated. That's a really cool baby-AT board, I got one and plan to make a small size case for it like this wonderful thing: https://www.vogons. …

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