Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

[zenmechanic]

Picked up 5 of these beauties off of craigslist and was able to salvage 3 by replacing the Saxon GF 470uf25v caps with some locally purchased rubycons on the power supply/inverter board.

The other 2 have the same issue: Screen powers on and I can see the gateway splash screen, but it's like the backlight is on full blast. The entire screen is washed in a white/grey color. I can get to the menus but nothing can be changed. Any ideas?

I can post pics of any parts from one of these screens.

[zandrax]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

The other 2 have the same issue: Screen powers on and I can see the gateway splash screen, but it's like the backlight is on full blast. The entire screen is washed in a white/grey color. I can get to the menus but nothing can be changed. Any ideas?

I'm not an expert and I could be wrong, but it seems the backlight is fixed at max value allowed: since the backlight is usually regulated through a pwm controller (such as computer fans) you should check this one.
If you can't even see a faint image but you see the osd menu, perhaps the vga/dvi interface went mad, so the panel gets no signal: the screen should show an uniform color.
If you don't see any image, even the osd, I think something else is damaged (panel electronics?).

Zandrax

[kc8adu]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

Picked up 5 of these beauties off of craigslist and was able to salvage 3 by replacing the Saxon GF 470uf25v caps with some locally purchased rubycons on the power supply/inverter board.

The other 2 have the same issue: Screen powers on and I can see the gateway splash screen, but it's like the backlight is on full blast. The entire screen is washed in a white/grey color. I can get to the menus but nothing can be changed. Any ideas?

I can post pics of any parts from one of these screens.

iirc the ones i had like that were bad eeproms
24lc02
and were the caps samxon?
seen many bad samxon in lcd's .
if so replace all of them .they can look ok but open.

[zenmechanic]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

I replaced the saxons, and they work fine. If the only problem with this is the
24lc02 eeproms, can I just exchange them out with another good chip? Or could they just be removed?

[zenmechanic]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

Well, I ordered some sample 24lc02 eeproms and swapped them out on one of the video boards. No change.

The problem is that I can see video displayed, I just looks like the backlight is badly bleeding through. Everything is washed out and somewhat inversed.

Any help would be great! Thanks!

[morggin]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

What Rubycon Cap did you use to replace the SAMXON GF 470uf25v ?

My Gateway FPD2185W died when i tried to turn it on this morning . I tore the thing apart to find that all 8 of the SAMXON GF 470uf25v Caps were all blugging.

[Wizard]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

I had one that lost - bias voltage (on the LCD itself due to fried tiny SMD transistor.
That causes total white panel.

Cheers, Wizard

[moshimoshi]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

Not sure if I'm reviving this after a while or what - but I just did a repair like this before I even found this forum (replaced the bad SAMXON caps with some equivelant 102C rated Nichicon Audio caps)

However, I was wondering - the button is missing from this one, and the buttons circuit board is broken. Anyone have either or both I could buy off them for cheap, and a diagram of how they go back in properly? Presently I can't make heads or tails of how the parts came out, being broken is probably obscuring this.

Works like a charm since the new caps went in though Thanks in advance!

[moshimoshi]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

Hmm...or not, I hit a snag. Now the thing starts up, works great, but after about 15 minutes of 'warming up' the backlight starts to flicker.

Wonder if it was screwed up before I rescued it or this is something I did.

[x-angel]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

I know that this may be a dead topic... but I just acquired one of these already busted. 6 of the 8 capacitors are bad. When I repair it, I will post pics if anyone wants me to. From what I have found... no one has done that yet. I know for us, most know what a capacitor looks like. Some dont.

Fortunately, they are not THAT intricate of a component to replace. If you have a steady hand with a soldering iron... you can do it.

Also.. I love how gateway put these things together... kinda back ass wards. Whole other topic for a whole other day.

[zenmechanic]

Re: Gateway FPD2185W Washed out / White

Out of the 5 that I had, I replaced the caps on 2 and was able to salvage them.

The only problem I had with the other 2 semi-working units was that the screen was a very washed out white color. I wish I could get them working, they are fantastic units.