Acer Aspire 5600 Series DISASSEMBLY AND REPAIR

Acer Aspire 5600 Series with a bad LCD

Today i have this laptop with a faulty screen. So at least i was betting that it was the screen that was faulty since i could get a good video signal output through the VGA port, but before disassembling it i had another thing in mind.

I should try to shake slightly the cable that connects the main laptop assembly with the screen as it is very much subject of violence through all it's life with screen open\close cycles. For this i only had to remove the top faceplate with the power button which was remarkably hard to remove, probably the hardest one ever. That or i just wasn't doing it right :)

Turns out that wasn't it, so i really had to disassemble the screen. I would only want to do this as a last resort.

After removing the screws around the screen (that are usually covered with small plastic dots), i had to remove the lcd screen brezel using an old credit card so that i wouldn't "hurt" the soft plastic.

Twenty screws later and a few sweat drops, i had the lcd freely standing on my bench. Time to inspect it.

Model number just in case i need a replacement.

 I started peeling the duct tape around the edges in order to find the chips-on-film display drivers. I suspected it could had some bad connection between them and the LCD.

And here they are. Three of them at the left side of the screen.

A closer look.

With the LCD connected to the screen i tried to move them back and forth really...i mean REALLY gently, and guess what..

I was able to get a full picture on the display. But in order for that to happen i had to keep constantly pressing the chip-on-film lcd driver in that position.

Nothing a small roll of duct-tape filling that gap couldn't handle.

And here it is with everything in place. Bare in mind, this LCD is permanently damaged (probably due to some drop or physical violence) so this fix isn't permanent at all. I expect the problem to reappear and to get  worse and worse eventually leading to a screen replacement. But this is better than nothing, and there is a slight chance that this will last for long this way. Time will tell.

Everything is assembled and working. I really hope this lasts for a while, as someone seems to need to play some Counter-Strike on this :)
Nice wallpapper by the way.