Inspiron 8000

It all began in February 2001. I bought a Dell inspiron 8000 laptop, with a 1400×1050 capable screen and I was happy. Over time however, things slowly broke. I was lucky enough to get a free upgrade to a 3 year next day onsite warranty, and over time got the HDD replaced twice and keyboard replaced once (The laptop was running 24×7 and was my main machine). Alas, sadly event the 3 year warranty expired – but things were still running sweet. The laptop still worked like a charm, until that fateful day in March 2006.

The LCD screen had been getting dimmer over time, something I attributed to old age. But that day in March proved to be the start of a very long but in the end successful hack – A hack to fix the laptop screen!

For those that aren’t aware, most LCD screens have a single fluro backlight which illuminates the screen. Like any fluro, over time they get dimmer, take longer to turn on, and their colour changes. Sadly like any fluro, eventually they blow.

I contacted Dell requesting a price for a new screen but the $765 price tag did not impress me. Even after market displays were rather costly at $400. Ebay was not much better. I have the 14.1″ SXGA screen – I wanted the higher resolution of 1400×1050. However, everything I could find was only for the 14.1″ SVGA screen with a resolution of only 1024×768, or the 15″ screen with a resolution of 1600×1280 (I think).

I did a few google searches to see what else I could do.. new laptop, put screen in for repair (yeah right, I’m in Adelaide, no one here to do that & shipping would kill me).. then I found something useful. A forum which indicated how someone had replaced the backlight themselves. A few more searches and I foundhttp://iantha.net/ccfl.htm.

Bingo, now I knew I’d found the cheap solution.

Hence I decided to fix the screen myself.

Symptoms

To be honest I’d known the screen was dying for a while. Initially the screen got quite dim and I found I had the brightness turned up all the way. Next I noticed the screen had some pinky purple sections appearing around the edges. These weren’t bright colours, more of a tint to the white that should have been showing.

Next there was the issue that when the screen turned on, it was extremely dim and slow got brighter. The big thing that gave me the hint something was on it’s way out was the fact that the screen would just die after some time. Basically if I shined a torch on the screen I could still make out what was on the screen but there was no light behind any of it.

Diagnosing What was wrong

Initially I didn’t know exactly what the problem was. The back light for most laptops (well in the 2000′s anyway) are a fluorescent tube know as a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL). They work by an electrical charge exciting a gas (often mercury vapour) which causes electrons to jump hence causing a UV light to be emitted. This light then hits the phosphorescent coating on the inside of the CCFL and causes it to glow for a split second. This glowing creates light. (For a full description about fluro’s see the wikipedia pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp)

Here’s the catch. In order to excite the gas, a high voltage is needed. This voltage is provided by an invertor. Now the big issue was to work out if it was the CCFL or the invertor that had died.

I tried to work out what the issue was and after more google searching, I came to the conclusion it was the invertor. Due to so many forum postings indicating the invertor was more likely to go than the backlight. Hence I began the hunt for a new invertor. First I had to work out what invertor I needed.

I found a trusty screw driver and began to pull apart the laptop.

• Removed the face plate where the buttons were
• Undid the screws holding on the flexible cable for the LCD
• Pulled out the LCD cable

At this point the LCD could now be separated from the laptop

• Removed the rubber grommits used to both cover screw holes and make the protect the screen when it shut
• Gently found the clips around the edge of the plastic bezel which held the front and the back plastic panels together
• Removed the few screws holding the screen to the rear plasic bezel

Now I could clearly see the model of the screen and also the invertor.

The invertor was attached to the laptop with one screen and two cables that cliped in to it. One came from the ribbon cable that went into the laptop – this supplied power to the invertor. The other was a much thicker cable that carried the higher voltage to the backlight.

The screen I had was a Samsung LTN141P2 model screen. The invertor had various info on it including the model numbers:

• k02I024-01
• LTN141P2

I later found the invertor was made by Ambit Electronics – though I could not find their website.

Hence I pugged the numbers into google and off I went searching. Sadly I found my laptop was really old. There were lots of places that referenced the invertor but sadly none of them had it in stock. Ebay proved to have a few, but they were both expensive ($40+) and the shipping would kill me (I’m located in Australia, most places charged $30USD+ for shipping).

Hence I decided just to check back every now and again, looking for a bargin.

About 2 months later I found a website (Sorry Can’t find the URL now) that gave a good run down about what a company who fixed LCD’s could fix. This website gave me a clear indication that the problem wasn’t my invertor but my CCFL instead. The page had a video indiciating the exact symptom my screen suffered – Ie: I’d turn the laptop on, the screen would flicker to life for a few seconds then die.

This gave me renewed hope. Hence I decided to rip appart the actual LCD panel and replace the backlight.

Replacing the CCFL

Before destroying what was left of my screen, I decided to see if I could find a replacement backlight. A little more searching reveled the website:http://www.jkllamps.com/index.cfm?action=fam&tid=2&fID=45

This site lists the backlights related to specific laptops – Excellent! The backlight I needed was model: BF20292-24B. I also thought Wow! The CCFL needs 660volts to run – you could kill yourself on this thing! So I decided to be a little careful.

I then set about ording a backlight. The cost of the lights were fine (~$15 AUD). Then I saw the shipping cost – $40USD! Ouch. Thankfully the lab I worked for occasionally ordered from Digikey (one of the led distributors). Another month later, I purchased the backlight and added the light to one of the lab’s orders to avoid having to pay the shipping charge.

The backlight arrived! The CCLF for a laptop is very very fine. It’s only 2mm thick but 292mm long and made of glass filled with pressurized gas! I was extremely careful working with it.

• Cut off most of the electrical conducts on the CCFL
• Soldered the wires from the invertor plug to it
• Ever so gently put the rubber gromits over the end plugs
• Plugged in and tested the soldering was ok
• Gently put it into the cradle it came out of

Drat! It’s too long by a few mm. Looking at it I saw one of my solder joints were preventing the rubber grommit from sitting properly. Hence I gently moved the rubber grommit a little more …. snap …. Look of disbelief…SHIT!.

I’d broken the backlight in half. Admittedly really was caused by me rushing and not being careful enough. Hence back to waiting for the next order to be placed.

It was some months later when the lab placed the next order. This time throughhttp://www.rs-components.com.au. The backlight was about the same price but once again, the shipping was the killer.

Eventually the order was placed and I piggy backed on the shipping again (anything over $100 is free shipping – the CCFL was $25AUD). Sadly when the CCFL arrived – in the worst packaging I’ve ever seen, it was already broken. I rang up RS and they told me what to do to return it. A few weeks later (after a number of chase up phone calls), the replacement CCFL arrived. I delicately took it home. That night was repair night. This time however, I was determined not to break it.

By this time it was a good 6 months after I’d pulled the laptop apart. Hence my memory of how everything went back together was a little sketchy. Hence I decided to use the broken backlight and see if I could place things back together. 15 minutes later I was confident I knew how things went.

The CCFL replaced in the cradle

Once again I:

• Cut off most of the electrical conducts on the CCFL
• Soldered the wires from the invertor plug to it
• Ever so gently put the rubber gromits over the end plugs
• Gently put it into the cradle it came out of

This time it fit ( Just! ). The rubber grommits really made the whole light hard to put in the cradle.

The rubber grommits made life difficult

Another rubber grommit

However once it was in place it was a matter of putting the screen back together.

Putting the LCD back together

With the CCFL in it’s cradle, it was time to put things back together.

Putting the clip & wires in place

CCFL Fully in place

First the clip that held the cradle in place was put on and the wires for the CCFL were cliped into the clip.

Then the LCD filters and lenses needed to be put back together.

Makeup of an LCD Screen

In order to get the CCFL out, I had to pull apart the LCD screen. For those not familiar with LCD internals, there is a glass panel illuminated by the CCFL. Then a whole series of filters and lenses to focus the light on to the actual LCD crystals.

Now I had to put all the lenses and filters back in the correct order so the screen worked – this took a while. The wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD) proved to be extremely helpful in this respect. Trial and error eventually found me getting things right.

At this point I noticed lots of spots and marks on the screen. Due to the 6 months wait, dust & hair (we own two cats & 2 dogs) had found it’s way in between the lenses/filters. Another 30mins later and 99% of that was gone.

It was done!

The finished product

With the LCD screen back together, all that was left was to put the LCD into the plastic bezel and everything else back together. That was the easy bit!

Now I have a working Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop screen with a total replacement cost of $35 – even cheaper if I hadn’t broken the first CCFL!

Hence anyone who thinks that $400+ is a rip off for a new laptop screen, has a bit of technical knowledge and a steady hand can fix their own screen!

Use

Desktop Or Portable

The first and foremost question is:

Will the notebook be used as a portable or a destktop computer?

Whilst is seems strange, most people use a notebook as a desktop computer.

The distinction is important as if the notebook is predominatly a desktop computer, you are not as concerned with battery life and generally want better performance. Also the need for a long warrenty is reduced as the notebook is less likely to be moved and hence less physical stress, caused by movement, is placed on the laptop.

Games Or Office Applications

The next question to ask is:

Will the notebook be used for playing ANY games?

There is a lot of people who when purchasing a computer swear it will never be used for games. Only to find once they have the computer that they do use it for games, and the computer can’t handle them.
When talking about games, I don’t mean card games like solitare, but the really good looking games with lots of colours, fast moving and full of sound. If you even remotely thing you are going to play games, you should aim to get a better notebook.
When it comes to office applications, any notebook today is sufficient.

Components

With the above questions answered, it’s time to start thinking about the components. With so many different notebooks these days, its confusing as to what is what. This section details some of the differences.

Screen

Most people think a bigger screen is better. But this is not always the case. There is a trade off between larger screens and better resolution.

Resolution

Consider the follow images

 

1280×1024 Screen Shot

 

1024×768 Screen Shot

Both are of the same document in word but with different resolutions. The 1280×1024 shows much more of the document than the 1024×768. So you might think of screen resolution as real estate space on the screen. The higher the resolution the more space you have to put things.

Due to this it’s not surprizing that the marketing people have hidden the fact behind a lot of acronyms.

• XGA is a resolution of 1024×768
• WXGA is Wide screen XGA with a resolution of 1280×720
• SXGA is a resolution of 1280×1024
• WSXGA is Wide screen SXGA with a resolution of 1440×960

In General the Wide screen formats are better as they give you more space. They are also perfect if you want to play a DVD as most DVD’s are wide screen.

Size

Most people refer to size as how many inches the screen is. Ie the notebook should have at least a 14″ screen.
The ideal is to have a screen big enough for the resolution. As a general guide:

• 13″ is too small for anything!
• 14″ is good for XGA & WXGA
• 15″ is ok for XGA and good for SXGA & WSXGA
• 16″ is too big for XGA and good for SXGA & WSXGA
• 17″ is too big for a notebook – your notebook is too large!

My personal recommendation is a 15″ screen with a SXGA or WSXGA resolution.

CPU / Brains

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to the Central Processing Unit (CPU) or brains of the computer.
Much of this comes down to clever marketing to mislead consumers. Traditionally the speed of a computer was rated in Gigahertz (Ghz) and this was the only deciding factor. These days there is different models, speeds and types of cpu’s.

The table below gives a rough comparison:

The Ghz rating isn’t that important. The difference between a 1.2Ghz machine and a 1.3Ghz machine is very minimal (less than 2%) in difference – Though the cost may be huge!

Memory

Memory is a very important feature in any computer. The general comment is:

You can never have enough memory!

Memory is temporary storage that the computer uses to do its work. As soon as the computer is turned off, everything in it is lost. The more memory you have the more applications you can have open at one. Quite often the more you have the faster things will run.

A minimum amount of memory I’d recommend for a windows XP machine is 512mb.

Hard Disk

The hard disk provides permanent storage space for you to store your files. If you intend to download music, games or movies, you will need a large drive. If you are simply using office applications you don’t need a huge drive.
Notebooks drives generally have less storage space than a desktop computer. This is due to the drives being physically smaller.

A general guide to what is a good size:

In general notebook drives are fairly quiet. However, if your worried about noise, then try and get a laptop with a Samsung drive in it – they generally are quieter.

Battery Life

If your aiming to use your notebook as a portable device, battery life should be high on your priority life. The average laptop runs for just under 2 hours before it needs recharging. All laptops can be used whilst they are recharging.

There is lots of things that impact how long a laptop will run on battery power. The hungriest component is the screen. A larger sized screen (as in inches not resolution) uses more battery life. A faster processer can use more battery life. I say can as most processers these day slow down when not in full use. Using office applications they are not in full use most the time.
The average battery will only last 3 years before it starts to lose its charging ability. So around the 2 & 1/2 -> 3 year mark you will notice it won’t last 2 hours any more.

CD/DVD Drive

Pretty much anything that can burn to a DVD is fine these days. This includes DVD/Dual Layer combo drives.

Modem

Modems are an old technology that is dying very quickly. They are being replaced by ADSL and wireless networks. If you think you need a Modem, consider how much you spend on phone calls and internet charges a month.

Lets say you have a $9.95 plan a month. Say you check your email every day. Now we have:

For $20 a month you can get an ADSL plan. ADSL is at least 5 time faster than modem speeds and you can use your phone at the same time! Thinking about switching? Have a look at: http://www.broadbandchoice.com.au

Networking

Networking is the way of the future. Already there is places that you can go to a cafe and use your notebook without having to connect any cables. This is know as wireless networking. At present there is lots of options. I’d suggest you get a notebook capable of 802.11g/b wireless networking and if possible bluetooth. Many mobile phones use bluetooth so you might be able to synchronise your mobile file’s address book with your PC and vice versa – no cables attached!

I’d also recommend a laptop with 10/100 network support. This is the blue cable most people plug into their computer at their work. This is much quicker than wireless networking. The newer standard is 10/100/1000 which is even faster. If your notebook supports that – all the better.

Warranty

May people over look the warranty of notebook when purchasing one. The cheaper notebook all have one year warranty. The more expensive ones generally have a 3 year warranty. If you are using the notebook as a portable device, considering the more expensive notebooks is definiately worth it.

There is statistics that show within 3 years a notebook used as a portable computer will need something fixed or replaced. My personal experiance supports this. The reasons are both obvious and not so obvious. The obvious ones are:

• People drop them (quite a common occurrance)
• The shift in transit and bang up against something (even in there cases)
• They get stolen
• Someone knocks the screen and cracks it
• Clips break / Plastic breaks

The not so obvious ones are:

• The constant shifting of the notebook causes too much shock for the internal drive and it needs replacing
• The notebook is put into a bag as it is shutting down, it fails to shutdown and overheats
• People cover the air holes due to noise or accidentally (ie using it on carpet)
• The screen flexes in transit breaking a connector
• A USB device/power cord is left plugged in to the laptop when it is packed up and that pushes on the plug breaking it

My personal laptop (A Dell) has been used as both a desktop computer and a portable device. In it’s time it’s had the internal drive fail twice in 3 years. Once due to wear and tear. Once due to shock. My laptop has never been dropped and is always put in a case during transit. Each time the drive was replaced under warranty. The cost of replacements zero. However, purchasing the drives separately would have cost ~ $400 each.

Choosing The Right Laptop

So your down to chosing a laptop, hopefully you’ve read all the information above and now know a litte more about makes up a good laptop.

When choosing a notebook I personally rate the following as the importance list:

1. Screen 
   I’d recommend a minimum 15″ screen with a WXGA resolution
2. Warranty 
   For a notebook acting as a desktop, 1 year should be ok. For a notebook acting as a portable computer, I recommend 3 years minimum
3. Battery Life
   The longer the better
4. Memory
   512mb minimum
5. Networking
   Must have 10/100 network (10/100/1000 is fine) and preferably 802.11g/b wireless networking. Bluetooth is optional
6. Hard Disk
   Minimum 60GB Disk
7. CPU/Brains
8. CD/DVD 
   Some type of dvd burner
9. Modem
   Optional, these things are old technology that won’t be around for much longer

So now I know what I want, how do I choose? At this point you have to use some of your own judgement. Your spending a lot of money on a laptop, ask to have a look at the notebook. See if the screen is clear, listen if the laptop is quiet and enquire about the warranty. Ask how old the model is. If they can’t answer how old it is, don’t buy it – they know how old it is.

Look at price lists to see what is current. Lots of stores have online price lists:

• http://www.getright.com.au
• http://www.auspcmarket.com.au
• [http://www.itwarehouse.com.au http://itwarehouse.com.au
• Check Saturday’s Advertiser
• Look in Harvey norman – they do have good specials at times
• Ask an expert, be sure to provide them with things like what size & resolution screen you prefer, what you will use it for, will it be portable or not, etc.