HP 2159m disassembly experience

[blargg]

Following is the steps I used to disassemble my HP 2159m LCD monitor. No real problems with it, I just absolutely hate the way LCDs turn the backlight off and on every time they switch resolutions, or want to display a system message. Having successully done a similar mod on an old 15" LCD, I figured I'd do it here too. I modified it to keep the backlight on constantly (but still turn off when in standby/off mode) by connecting its enable signal to the power LED signal. So far, no problems after reassembly <crosses fingers>. Now I get psychadelic patterns when changing resolutions, where normally it would have a black screen to hide that!

• Lay single layer of towel flat on table and place monitor face-down, with stand hanging over edge. If towel is really thick, it might put pressure on LCD, which you don't want.
• Unsnap VESA mounting plate in back of center.
• Remove four black long machine screws under cover.
• Remove four shorter black machine screws from stand.
• Slide stand out.
• You'll next be removing large black plastic back from silver edging and front; ignore the HP disassembly instructions about pulling the black plastic bezel from the front; it cannot be removed like that at all!
• Look into horizontal spaces at bottom where stand was. You will see two catches on either side, made of the silver plastic, with a couple of parallel horizontal openings. These face INSIDE the monitor, in the space you can see into from the bottom back. Slide a credit card between silver and black back plastic to uncatch them. Once the two main ones are undone, slide the card into the side of the monitor on the bottom, so that it goes between the back black palstic and silver rim. There are many more similar catches around the edge like the first two. Use the card to slide around and push towards the back so that you unhook each catch. Eventually you'll undo all of them and be able to lift the back plastic shell off.
• Unscrew the two speakers (you might not need to do this, come to think of it).
• Remove the two flexible plastic button overlays. They are each held by two plastic bumps. Use a flathead screwdriver to lift them up off these.
• Slide the button PCB up out of the silver plastic.
• Carefully remove the silver tape from the upper portion. Peel from one top edge diagonally, removing it from the LCD panel metal, but leaving it stuck to the back metal cover over the circuit boards. Be especially careful with the tape on the right, which covers the ribbon cable to the LCD.
• Remove the two silver screws from the bottom, which hold the metal cover to the silver plastic.
• Prepare a second towel, also single-layer, parallel.
• Using both hands, carefully lift the metal cover and LCD panel out of the front plastic shell. Hold on to the metal box in the center, not the edges of the panel. Lift slowly so that you don't suddenly jerk anything. Carefully move the innards over the new towel, rotate them 180 degrees, and place them down so that the bottom ofe the monitor is away from you.
• Make a note of which bulb connects to which socket. On mine, the pink-wired ones were connected to the lower sockets of each pair (the ones closer to the AC/VGA plugs).
• Unplug the four CCFL bulbs from the side. These connectors are extremely frustrating, as they just don't want to unplug, even once you've undone the catches. I did find that using a safety pin pointy end to stick from the wire side under the catch to keep it open helped some.
• Remove the four cross screws, two on the left and two on the right side of the LCD panel.
• Slowly lift the metal back off the LCD panel. The only two things connecting them together is the ribbon cable and some foil tape on the far side (bottom). Look around that side and lift the tape off the panel.
• Flip the back over towards you, hinging it around the ribbon cable to the LCD on your lower-left. When you have it about half-way flipped, look on the underside where the ribbon cable is folded and foil taped to the underside of the metal cover. Unfold it then untape it to give some extra slack. Now you can finish flipping the back over and lay it out so that you can get to the PCBs WITHOUT needing to unplug the LCD panel.
• Slide the right side of the metal/PCB arrangement over the LCD panel, and you can plug in the CCFL bulbs (note that now the upper bulbs will be connected to the outputs that the lower bulbs are normally connected to, not that this should cause any problems). Now you can power it up normally to test the CCFLs if necessary.
• To remove the video PCB, remove one screw and four mounting fixtures from the VGA/DVI/HDMI connector area, and two screws from the PCB.

Probably about 6 hours doing all this, partly due to not knowing how to get the silver separated from the black (at first, I tried to remove the black bezel, and then the flat sheet around it, the one with the button captions on the front). Reassembly was a breeze, thankfully.