Dell Latitude D830 display problem

Hello,

I have a very bad situation with my laptop - Dell Latitude D830.
It had 3 years of warranty and on the 2nd year and 11th month of usage half of the components failed.
I got my LCD, harddrive, speakers and motherboard replaced.

Now, 2 months after the warranty expired, the harddrive and the LCD failed again!
I got my HDD replaced without any problems.

The problem is with the new LCD that the official Dell service provider installed in my laptop.

First I got some strange behavior when going to sleep/shutdown - total white screen appeared right before system shutdown.
When booting again, the screen was very very dark, but when Windows 7 booted, I hit Fn + LeftArrow and the Ambient Light Sensor kicked in and restored the normal brightness.
After a couple of days, the screen was gone. Display was very dark.

I did my homework and ordered a replacement Power Inverter for the CCFL lamp. Installed it and it didn't make any difference.

Then, I ordered a replacement LCD with integrated CCFL lamp of course, installed it and tried it with both 2 inverters that I have - still no luck!!!

The screen is acting like the CCFL lamp is gone, but what are the chances that my new display is defective?!


There is one thing I think might be the problem - Dell ControlPoint software.
I have installed some Windows XP version of it on my Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit (don't know how I did it and why the XP version) to try to control the Ambient Light Sensor, but without any luck.
Now I cannot uninstall the Dell ControlPoint, because it is stating that the installed version is XP version and I am running a Vista (?!).

Please advice what might cause the dead-CCFL-like problem with my LCD display.

Thank you in advance.

 

Does the LCD display work at bootup... when you enter the system BIOS screen... or if you run the Dell Diagnostics CD?

GK

 

It does not work on boot.
I get the same level of brightness () on boot, Windows loading and Windows.
I am now deleting all Dell ControlPoint keys in the registry and will try to see if it change anything.
I will also try the Dell Diagnostics CD.

 

So then, the display hardware is not working. But you imply that you can see a faint image? Perhaps the replacement invertor is not working?

You asked the chances of the new display not working... DOA or shortly thereafter is not uncommmon with electronics. But I would narrow in on the problem somehow before swapping more parts.

Does an external display connect and work?

DCP and OS settings are not the culprit if the display is malfunctioning at bootup.

GK

 

I see a faint image. The faint image is the same when using the old LCD and the new LCD, with both the old and the new inverters. I've tried all 4 combinations of those.

The external display that I use now is working properly, through DVI connection and using D/Dock docking station.

 

This suggests the system board and GPU are ok, and that the problem rests with the display hardware, which I'm not familiar with. Could it be that the replacement invertor is not working?

GK

 

Yes, the system board and GPU should be OK.
I would highly doubt a non-working invertor but if I do not get a resolution within a couple of days, I will order another invertor, as it is very cheap.

 

I removed the keyboard of the laptop and discovered the problem:

The MF-Stupid-SH*T Dell employer who replaced the parts of my laptop, had NOT inserted the invertor cable properly to the motherboard, so the inverter did not get any power at all !!!

I WILL NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM DELL AGAIN AND/OR USE THEIR SERVICE!
I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU DO THE SAME!

 

+ I am selling a perfectly working Dell Latitude D830 LCD screen haha

 

Good that you found the trouble.

Service onsite may have been performed by a third party, not Dell. He was clearly not suitably detail-oriented.

GK