Doh! need advice...

Well, I was having a merry ol time with Diablo III and I was drinking some cider in a nice tall..TALL glass....

Next thing I know, that TALL glass is falling towards my laptop and cider is everywhere. My ninja reflexes kick in, time slows to a halt, laptop is tipped upside down in recover mode, power is d/c and battery is popped out. Laptop is torn down in less that 5 mins..

Meanwhile my mate in Aus is laughing his anus off as all he hears over Skype is the sound of glass dropping, and a loud 'OH MY GOD!!!' and then the noise of 'please wait while we try to get your call back'

Lucky for me, I can share his sentiment as the tear down and clean up resulted in a fully functioning laptop.

The side effect of my panicked recovery effort is some nice large scratches on the screen as it made contact with my NZXT laptop cooler....

So being pedantic as I am, I was wondering if it were possible to buy a replacement outer screen for the laptop, without getting Dell involved. Because, well, you know....Dell sucks for any real repair work...and I would happily do it myself.

Sorry for the long story, I have had some 'OMG my laptop is not dead' drinks

 

I think your gonna have to get another screen assembly to fix this. I don't think there is an easy way to just replace the plexi glass. glad your machine is alright though.

 

Ok, so what do you mean by screen assembly? Does that include the LCD as well? I imagine it would have to the be the whole outer and inner parts...inclusive of the alien head etc :|

Can you get this outside of Dell at all? I work in IT so potentially that is not an issue to organise with our Dell distributor.

 

yes it is possible to buy just parts, if you've got a distributor with a three figure IQ you should just be able to give them a model number of the computer and they should be able to get the part you need. Worst case scenario you might need to get the part number of the screen which you can likely find on fleabay or maybe a random parts site. I'm on the market for a keyboard for an Dell M15x wink wink nudge nudge and yes I have my part number.

 

Since the plexy is glued to the assembly, i doubt you'll be able to find it separately.

Here's the only place i know where you can get only the shell:
Dell Alienware M17x LCD Front Bezel

Do contact them to double check they're sending you the right part as they're shipping from China.

But replacing only the plexy glass is no easy task. If you still want to do it, use a heat gun at the lowest setting and with a blade gently pry the plexy as you go around the bezel.

Also, i'm glad you were able to apply first aid in a timely manner

 

^^ that looks perfect, although I am slightly concerned about how to properly remove the screen considering I do not see any screws. Is it literally a matter of glue that just needs to be pried? Hope not...cause that sorta stuff never is the same again...

haha well,I am sure I could sort something out but I am in London and you appear to be all the way in America. So potentially I could work something out but it could get quickly expensive once postage gets involved.

 

Not really glue, but double sided sticky tape between the plexy and the assembly. There are no screws.

The glue just needs a little heat to melt.
Prior to 'installing' the new one, buy a roll of thin 3M double sided sticky tape to put it back.

 

Great! Thanks for the advice.

I will let you all know how it goes. Still stoked that I have a working laptop...