CF-53S LED Backlight went out.

I picked up a CF-53S but the LED Back light isnt working. It does boot to the setup screen and you can see it but there is no Backlight. Since it is the LED the chances of them going out is slim, so Im thinking the board maybe?? Anyone have input or experience with this issue or replacing the Lighting? Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks!

 

Early 53's are kind of known to have video/backlight issues.
Touchscreen models seem more prone to problems.
Sometime you get lucky and the cable is the issue.
Mine was the motherboard. I parted the whole thing out.

 

Well, thats not what I was hoping to hear! LOL I'll tear into it when I get home and see whats there to see...

It is the touch screen model and it has the same i5 as my 31W, was hoping it might be a simple fix. Well, Im still hoping that it is.
Thanks Shawn, hope everything is going well with you!

 

day by day for me.

Keep us posted

 

I hate to agree but...bad motherboard I'm betting. Shawn, either you or Larry had the photos of the burned spot on a 53 motherboard didn't you?

I seem to remember that, blown fuse I think.

 

yes, I have photos somewhere

 

Did you try connecting it to a flat screen TV to see if it works ?

 

Ouch.

I tossed one that did the same thing if I remember correctly,after I stripped it of course.

 

I haven't tried to connect it to an external screen yet, I know the screen works as you can see the setup screen if you hold it at the right angle but it doesn't brighten up when you hit the FnF12.

Those pics make it look like You can't put a penny in place of the Fuse like I do at Home. LOL

Shawn FYI, My CF31W is running fine with 12GB of memory. Only had the one 8GB card I swiped from my brothers gaming system. Still going to be a while before I can afford a pair of 8G chips for myself, but 8G is plenty anyways.

 

Obviously the backlight is out. Now we need to see if it's the board or just a bad LCD. An LCD is pretty cheap for a 53 non-touch. Say $45 but I haven't fooled with them enough to know if the touch is built into the screen, I bet it is...Shawn?

If so it is time to break out the digital multimeter and start measuring voltages. Reason #1 why I dislike CF-53's. I still say board, hope I'm wrong and the cable got tweaked. I'll leave out the part where if it got grounded...poof.

 

IF YOU USE A METER---DISCONNECT POWER AND REMOVE BATTERY.
THEN HOLD POWER BUTTON DOWN FOR 30 SECONDS. CHECK CONTINUITY FIRST

Yes touch is built in.
I do have an almost new cable.

I say you wont need a meter. Pop the panel off above the keyboard and have a look see.
Magic smoke leaves tracks.

 

I have a CF-30 that did the same thing years back. I tried everything and as a final resort I reflashed the existing bios and it worked. Maybe try that.

 

Flash is worth a try, but 53's have known hardware video issues

 

Well. No magical smoke trails in there. Reseated the cable and still nothing but where the cable is routed into the screen is pretty messed up, like they didn’t care it was routed right or not. Doesn’t look like the Sherrifs IT Tech opened it either

I’ll try hooking it to an external monitor when the sun goes down.

Thanks for all the Advice and pointers guys!!

 

Second photo, looks burned to me but my vision is not great. Right side of the connection next to the big Phillips screwdriver.

If not then the cable could have a broken wire inside, seen that a lot on Chromebooks and some others. Ok, I'm going to tell you the horror story of the CF-31, Shawn will confirm.

IF you get a new cable to the LCD, it probably will not be marked and on the 31 at least you can install it upside down...thus loosing at that time $1000 when it smokes the motherboard. So don't do that, it hurts...lol.

 

It looks to be that the Cable frayed a bit where it was poorly routed when made. then over time (Open.. Close... open... close...) it wore through and shorted out which bew out the F3 fuse. Hopefully I can nab one off another MB I have laying around here, if not, Digikey has some nice ones! LOL

Thanks Shawn!
PS. FYI... I Tried 16Gb of Memory in my 31W and it worked well. then it started having some 'voltage spikes' and the USB3.0 stopped working (will still charge stuff though) but no issues once I swapped back to 8Gb.