Looks like I've torched my TZ

Had the worst day. Replaced the broken screen in my TZ with a brand new identical screen imported from Japan. Other than having some black marks around the crack the machine was working perfectly.

The bezel came off easily enough, as did the single connector. I soon had the LCD (LED actually) out and was manoeuvring the replacement into place. Unfortunately that proved not so easy and I spent about an hour wrestling with the wire before finally prying it into the slot. I snapped the bezel back, and switched the machine on.

Nothing. A bit of a wimper from the hard disk light, but nothing else.

Thinking I mightn't have seated the screen properly, I took it all apart and reseated the connector.

Again nothing. So I reverted back to the old screen. But alas.

I tried connecting an external monitor. Nothing.

So then I proceeded to take the entire machine apart, and reassemble it. Pointless.

So that's where I'm at. I'm at a loss what went wrong or what to do next. At this point, I'm resigned to trying to recover the data on my hard drive and drawing a line through the whole exercise as a costly mistake.

Any suggestions (other than trying to get Sony to help)?

TT

 

Sony isn't going to help with this one...the damage was very clearly caused by your installing that new screen. The fact that it took an hour for your to fit a connector should have told you it wasn't meant to work. You probably shorted something when using that screen for the first time, and it killed the laptop.

As far as the HDD goes, you'll want to pick up an external HDD enclosure and plug the drive into it. Plug total unit into a another PC, and pull the data off.

Does the TZ use a SATA or IDE connection? Is the drive 1.8" or 2.5"?

 

Did you ground yourself while doing the LED screen swap?

 

i'm sorry to hear that, man. i've had my own tz operation disaster recently.

Greg: why won't sony help? i mean, obviously, this voids the warranty, but if he's willing to pay for it, they won't fix it?

 

Not formally. I did have bare feet on the floor, though I really doubt I was staticky.

Besides which, honestly, do you really think static is the issue it's cracked up to be? I mean, for example, how often do you ground yourself when swapping a monitor in and out? I've been fooling around with electronics for 25 years and never yet had a static issue - unless this is my first!

My best guess is I've damaged one of the connector wires in some way. There doesn't appear to be any physical damage, though it's hard to say. The video cable is hard connected to the motherboard at the other end, and it's fixed well enough that nothing wouldn't been dislodged.

Despite what it might sound think I was pretty careful. That's why it took me so long. I really didn't expect it not to work. The thing is so dead I can't help but feel I'm missing something.

TT

 

Ouch, that's brutal mate... Hopefully you can get something sorted out, the TZ is a nice laptop....

To be perfectly honest, I rarely use a ground strap myself and over the past decade I've been fiddling with electronics, and the past couple of years I've been doing it as a full time job in a high tech company, I have yet to zap something. This all being in a very dry, static prone environment.. But I'm sure I'm tempting fate, since it just takes one good actual zap in the wrong place to kill something. I've been getting by with just touching something metalic/grounded before touching electronics.

I'd check over for any shorts you might have created in the cable/header. It's possible that a short circuit will be preventing the TZ from doing anything. Appart from that, I don't really remember anything else in the region around the screen that could have been damaged. Maybe the battery/power connections somewhere?

Good luck!

 

Time for eEbay?

 

yah if you cant get it to work you might as well sell it for parts to recoup the cost of the notebook