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October 4th, 2020 11:00
Vostro 14 3468 backlight issue
I've got a customer here who had their display go dim on their Vostro 14. Naturally, just out of warranty.
The usual culprit would normally be the inverter on an LCD display, but looking for an inverter only got me the entire screen, inverter and all. So, ordered the screen, received it, installed it, and... same thing. External monitor works on both VGA and HDMI, but you can just barely make out the information on the screen.
So... Did I get a bad screen assembly? Would a bad cable do this, or even the motherboard itself? I'm used to video not working, or at least getting some flicker with a bad cable, and if the motherboard goes bad, I'm not used to seeing video when plugged into an external source. Thanks for any input.
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ejn63
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October 4th, 2020 12:00
Notebooks LCDs haven't used inverters in the better part of a decade -- CCFL backlights were on the wane starting over 10 years ago.
If you've had two screens not show up a backlight, more likely is that the power supply to the backlight is bad, meaning the system board needs to be replaced.
wyrmzr
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October 4th, 2020 14:00
I was afraid you'd say something like that; I hate being the bearer of bad (i.e. expensive) news, but if that's what it is, then that's what I get to do.
wyrmzr
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October 21st, 2020 16:00
I decided to go with the old wisdom of "When in doubt, start with the cheapest part first". And while this was technically not the cheapest part first (it's rare to have a cable go bad and still give video, with or without a so-called "backlight"), it was cheaper than a motherboard.
Video cable replaced, system fully functional. It was apparently just a severed wire in the loom causing the screen not to get the signal to light up.