Laptop screen fault

[phugoid]

Hello,

2 years in and my HP Pavilion zv5000 screen has given up the ghost. The backlight has failed which seems to be a common problem due to the backlight invertor circuit board failing. Sending back to HP for repair is not an option as apparantly it costs up to 80% of the price of the laptop. I hear, however, that you can buy the backlight invertor chip and replace yourself for a fraction of the cost.

Has anyone had any experience of this? Tricky procedure?

Cheers

[thepassenger]

Not done something that intensive to a laptop myself but:

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Pavilion-ZV500
For the part and:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/

Should be the service guide... not got Acrobat installed yet so can't confirm.

[k50 del]

I regularly replace laptop screens and backlights for work, it's normally a fairly straightforward procedure, the only execption so far being a compaq N1020v that displayed the symptoms of a blown backlight, but had a much more serious issue.

[phugoid]

Cheers for the help folks,

Anyone got any idea where I could get my hands on the replacement inverter board in the UK?

It seems everywhere I look on the web (& ebay etc.) is an American site.

[thepassenger]

The ebay link I posted did ship world wide and it should be a pretty generic part as it doesn't handle external voltage.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Pavilion-ZV500
Is a bit expensive... although this one seems reasonable:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-HP-Pavilion

Again both will come from the states but if the seller is happy to post it to the UK then it's all good

[deva link]

phugoid said:

Cheers for the help folks,

Anyone got any idea where I could get my hands on the replacement inverter board in the UK?

It seems everywhere I look on the web (& ebay etc.) is an American site.

I Googled for laptop backlight and selected UK only and it shows a whole load of possibilities: http://tinyurl.com/s2q5w

[phugoid]

Hmm, not sure if it's the bulb that has blown, or the inverter. How can you tell?

Screen is flickering bright and dull and there is a high-pitched squealing noise emitted from the laptop which tells me it's the inverter that has failed. Am I wrong?

[thepassenger]

Someone will correct me on this but.

The inverter on it's last legs could cause those symptoms (throwing out incorrect voltage, high pitched whine) unfortunatley so could the back light. The only real way to tell is to replace one part and see if the fault goes away... My money is still on it being a dodgy inverter though as the tubes seem to last quite well in laptops (an Apple PowerBook Duo was still going strong from the 486 era until I stripped it to see what was inside).