Repairing old laptop LCDs? \ VOGONS

Repairing old laptop LCDs?

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First post, by Kahenraz

Posted on 2016-06-10, 21:51

Kahenraz Offline

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I have two early 90s era 486 laptops which have problems with their displays. One is a 9.5" color STN and the other is a 10.4" color TFT. Both have ther inverters accessible from within the plastic housing. Each panel connects through a wide ZIF connected to the motherboard.

Is it possible to replace these screens with modern alternatives?

The service manual states:

The spare display panel, inverter board, display cable, and display enclosure for the 9.5" color TFT models come preinstalled in a display assembly. To replace these parts on the 9.5-inch color TFT models, replace the entire display assembly.

But no spare sparts are available.

Reply 1 of 5, by PeterLI

Posted on 2016-06-10, 22:40

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Last edited by PeterLI on 2016-12-18, 02:57. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 5, by Kahenraz

Posted on 2016-06-10, 22:50

Kahenraz Offline

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Lets argue for a moment that this isn't possible. Is it possible to replace the unit with something else? Or are all panels fairly proprietary in regards to how they connect to a PCB?

Reply 3 of 5, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2016-06-10, 22:50

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If your problems only relate to the backlight you can replace those with LED nowadays.

1+1=10

Reply 4 of 5, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2016-06-10, 22:52

h-a-l-9000 Offline

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> Or are all panels fairly proprietary in regards to how they connect to a PCB?

Even if the connectors are the same (which they are often not) you need to compare the datasheets to be sure.

1+1=10

Reply 5 of 5, by adalbert

Posted on 2016-06-10, 23:10

adalbert Offline

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One option is to buy a 10.4" used TFT screen of any available brand and solder wires directly to it if you don't have matching connector. I did that twice and it worked. There are two types of interfaces used in vintage laptop TFT screens: 3-bit and 6-bit RGB. And in fact you can even replace older 3 bit screen with more modern 6 bit screen, you will just have to ommit the lower 3 bits and solder only 3 wires per channel (i did that too).

Another option is to buy something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-inch-Digital-Car-M … GMAAOSwg3FUfHWz and hope it will fit into your LCD case, then solder the wires directly to the VGA connector in your laptop's mainboard.

Or better use that http://www.ebay.com/itm/VGA-Controller-Board- … UoAAOSwnDZUINlS

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

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