Acer 5737z no backlight fixed by new CCFL

[piernov]

This Acer 5737z was given to me as a "nothing on the screen". Thankfully, there was an image and it was only the backlight which was missing.
I tested the inverter with a known good CCFL and it was fine, so the issue came from the screen.

After extracting the old CCFL from the display, I could get it running by messing around with the cable at the tube's ends. As it would be hard to try to fix this cable and the CCFL was already old, I prefered to replace it.
I could go with the whole screen itself, but since the panel was perfectly fine I thought I would try to fix it.

It's a bit of a pain to take apart and put everything back together correctly, but in the end the replacement was successful and everything is working fine again (except the keyboard with a bad "i" key, which I discovered later).

Sadly I forgot to take note of the display's model number, but anyway, here is the CCFL I ordered:
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-...712491622.html

"2pcs 352mmx2.0mm CCFL Backlight Lamps for 15.6 inch LCD Laptop Display with wire harness without welding" for $10.50, if ever the link gets broken. It wasn't that easy to find the right length for the tube, and with a connector on it.

One of the CCFL was broken when I received it, the other one was perfectly fine.

[momaka]

Re: Acer 5737z no backlight fixed by new CCFL

Nice save!

I'm guessing one of your lamps came broken because it wasn't packaged properly?

I've only ordered from CCFLwarehouse.com before, but the packaging was superb. Also found the CCFL lamp I needed on discount. So instead of paying $10-15 for a single lamp, I only paid $5 + $5 for the shipping. (Though I got it cheaper because it didn't come with wires, so I had to reuse the ones from the old CCFL). This was for an HP monitor, by the way, I fixed it around last year. Had a bad CCFL. It was was a lot of work to get it taken apart, but I think overall it was worth it.

[piernov]

Re: Acer 5737z no backlight fixed by new CCFL

The tubes were wrapped inside foam, and inserted into a rigid cardboard roller. Not perfect packaging but good enough so that it shouldn't have been broken during transportation.
I guess it was broken during packaging.
Yeah I saw various CCFL without wires, but since in my case it was probably the issue I ordered one with wires. (and I didn't want to try replacing the wires on the one I had)
I've got another 2 computer displays with bad CCFL, but one has a PSU issue too, and the other has no image (came with a broken LVDS cable). The first one is very old so I don't want to spend time fixing the PSU and replacing the CCFL…

[momaka]

Re: Acer 5737z no backlight fixed by new CCFL

The tubes were wrapped inside foam, and inserted into a rigid cardboard roller. Not perfect packaging but good enough so that it shouldn't have been broken during transportation.
I guess it was broken during packaging.

Quite possibly.
Though, I think that could have been easily averted if yours were packed like mine: clear thin plastic tube that was only a few diameters bigger than the CCFL. The tube was wrapped in bubble wrap on the outside and then stuffed inside a triangle cardboard box. This really minimizes the risk of the CCFL breaking in packaging or during transit. And as a bonus, I now use the clear plastic tube as a storage container for the old CCFL (which I intend to recycle when I collect a few more from another monitor I have).

Yeah I saw various CCFL without wires, but since in my case it was probably the issue I ordered one with wires. (and I didn't want to try replacing the wires on the one I had)

Yeah, if it comes with wires, even better.

That said, most CCFL wire issues typically happen where the wires are soldered to CCFL leads - particularly on the high voltage side, where the heatshrink insulation starts to break up and the CCFL starts to arc to the case of the monitor or CCFL next to it. Easy to spot those problems in a metal case, though, as the arcing will create lots of ozone, which tends to corrode metals easily.