Dell Inspiron 1545 dark or dim screen / no backlight - yes that again!

John,

        Did you ever find out what is going on with the 1545 laptops? I have one also with a new screen and won't light up. It's an LED. I checked the cable and the lid switch and it works on another monitor. I can't believe the problems people are having with these.

No sorry i didn't get to the bottom of that, i changed the board as well as the inverter, cable and screen individually to no avail.  What i should have done is change the whole lot together and it might have worked.

just as a note i actually fitted the screen of the first faulty 1545 i had into another 1545 and in that case it worked fine.  With this machine i was very carefull not to disconnect or put under any strain, the cable connection to the inverter.

So far i have found that in some cases it is the screen that has failed but others have no output from the inverter but changing the inverter or the cable has no effect.  Hope this helps.

Thanks for writing. Mine is an LED and I see no inverter near the screen. I'm assuming it gets it's power from the board directly. I know what the inverter looks like and is usually on CCFL screens, But mine has to be a big pain. I have never seen a waste of money like this. lol

I think you've been through the mill also. lol Thanks very much and good luck!!

Sounds like you have/had a LCD Screen problem. I had the ame issues with dark/black screen on my Inspiron 1545 and we replaced the LCD screen and also the screen inverter. Those two repairs fixed the problem.

I have an Inspiron 1545 with an LED LCD.  I needed to replace the display similar to other stories I have read.  I purchase a replacement from DELL.  It did not work, image appeared extremely dim in background.  I called DELL and they sent me a second display.  I replaced the display again, but still with the same result.  There is only one cable that attaches from the display to the mother board.  I have checked, double checked and triple checked.  The connection is solid.  DOES ANYONE HAVE A RESOLUTION FOR THIS PROBLEM?  If I start dumping more money into this, it will cost more than the laptop did.  If there is an invertor, where is it, if it is not attached directly to the display? Thanks for any help anyone can offer!

Scoobie, Well I gave up. I checked and double checked also. I have read that some people say that the motherboard goes bad after the screen has been cracked. I've even heard about people buying new motherboards and now the new screen works. lol  I'm not buying one. I could buy a new laptop for the price of a board. Someone said inverter. No inverter for mine. It is an LED LCD, Not a CCFL.  CCFL has the inverter. LED has one cable and thats it.  Too bad you've got the same problem.  We were so mad.

I beleive i have your answer.  The lcd screens have a led backlight.  This backlight is fed power through the 40 pin connector which is fused by a 3A/ 32V fuse on the motherboard which is by the connector and marked F1.  Not an easy replace for the unexperienced but possible.  Ohm out the fuse and check that first.  Or you could jump the fuse with wire, but it could hurt your mother board if another problem exists and too much current is sent to it.  Hope this helps, and good luck.

tommyredman,  I have been looking for an answer like yours.  I have an Inspiron 6000 with a CCFL backlight.  I have the usual symptoms -- I can read the black screen if i hold external light just right -- and an external monitor works fine.   I have replaced the screen and inverter (they come as one piece) and I have also replaced the single ribbon cable that carries data to the screen and power to the inverter.  I continued to disassemble and have searched for anything that looks like a fusible link or anything that is labelled F1.  Nothing found as yet.  Any other ideas?  Where can I find the pin-out for that ribbon cable connector?    Thanks

It sounds like it's the mainboard - if you can see an image, the video is OK, but the power circuit that supplies the inverter is bad.

There are two different boards depending on whether you've ATI or Intel video.

www.parts-people.com/index.php

Well.. What I told you was for an inspirion 1545 with LCD and led backlight, so there is no inverter. I recommend looking for text on the motherboard listing the fuse type and location. Mine has text saying "F1 = 3A/32V fuse" and is located right next to the fuse just by the 40 pin out to the monitor. It may not be F1 but I would look for something similar. And remember the fuse is very small, like 3 mm long, which I just ordered and am planning on fixing this week. I've seen so many posts on this with bad answers, I thought I'd post my findings when I came across this problem. In the meantime I'll see if I can't find some more info for your model. Apparently though when the screen is broken or goes bad, it pulls to much current and blows that fuse. Hope this helps you out and I'll get back to you if I find something.

Just so you know...I just replaced the fuse and, what do you know, it works!!!!

Tommy - Where did you get the fuse and how much did it cost you? Also is it difficult to change the fuse?

Do you realize if this is a fix  you have helped A LOT OF PEOPLE.  I have no problem soldering, I've soldered for over 15 years. But it is a matter of get in there and not heat up the area too much etc.   Once a person knows how to solder there's always something comes along the way to use it on.  I truly appreciate everyone's help on this. I still have the laptop over a year now unfixed. No wonder any new screen wouldn't work. lol  

Ive had this problem for some time of the backlight flickering, a quick slap to the side of the screen made it come on.  It got to the point last week that it was unusable.  I removed the screen bezel and fiddled with the backlight cable out of the inverter and now it no longer works!, can see the Dell logo in the background and desktop if I catch the light on the screen right.

I ordered a replacement inverter, didnt solve the problem, ordered a new screen, that didnt solve the problem, noticed there is no voltage out of the inverter.  I found the thread on another forum that the picture above came from before discovering this thread.  I tried my continuity tester across the fuse shown and im getting continuity across it, so thats not my problem:

Fuse on my mobo has a P on it..

Anyone else how any sucess with the normal LCD inverter screen models not the LED screens?

Gaz