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Thread: How to: Swapping out LCD panel in Acer Laptop

  1. #1
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    How to: Swapping out LCD panel in Acer Laptop

    Hey guys,

    I bought an old Acer Travelmate 4600 laptop the other day for the wife to browse around on whilst I am on the main PC, but it had a broken LCD (ebay sale and I was fully aware of this). I had an old Acer Travelmate 4520 lying around at home which has a fried motherboard, and the same type of 15" XGA LCD. I have replaced these LCDs before so I knew it would fit this 4600.

    So anyway, here is a quick guide on how I swapped out the LCD panels (15" LCD from 4520 to the 4600's chassis). I guess a lot of this would be relevant when dealing with most laptop LCDs - just slightly different components, connectors in slightly different places. Hope this helps out someone in the future...

    1. Here we have the two laptops. Donor laptop in dark grey, laptop to receive new LCD in light grey.





    Start by removing your mains charger and disconnecting your laptop battery.

    2. Flip the donor laptop on its edge, and unscrew the 3 screws on the back of the LCD hinges.



    3. Next, fold the LCD backwards (open it as far as it will go), and pry off this plastic panel (gently as you can with your fingers). If you are gentle and patient enough, it should come off relatively easily without snapping anything.





    4. Flip the laptop over and unscrew the cover that protects the wifi and RAM components. On these laptops this is in the center.



    You will find that there should be two "pigtail" connectors attaching to your wifi card - these are labelled AUX and MAIN. (note down which colour wire attaches to which connector) - mine was black on AUX and White on MAIN. Disconnect these two pigtail connectors as these run through the notebook, up into the LCD to give you a better wireless signal.

    5. Next we flip the laptop over again, and unscrew these two screws to remove the keyboard.



    Lift the keyboard gently and notice the ribbon connector that attaches to the motherboard. Flick the black clip on this ribbon connector upwards and the ribbon connector can now be removed.



    6. You can now tug carefully on the pigtail connector that runs under the keyboard and onto the wireless card (we have previously disconnected the pigtails). Pull this out until it is free from under the laptop. Be careful when it goes through the small hole on the motherboard.



    7. The main black coloured cable coming out from the LCD and connecting on to the motherboard is your main LCD connection. Carefully lift this off the motherboard, using the tag on the back of the connector to pull.



    8. Once both the LCD cables are free we can now unscrew the main screws holding the LCD on to the laptop chassis. On these acers there are two on each side. PS. keep all your screws in a safe place so we can put everything back later!



    9. We should now have a separate laptop LCD disconnected from the main chassis.



    10. Do the same procedure as above but this time for the laptop that is going to receive the working LCD. Don't get these muddled up now!

    11. Once I had the working LCD off the other laptop, I hooked the main connector up to the receiving laptop with it lying down on the table to test. This was to ensure the new LCD was compatible and working as expected. See image below:



    12. This was working so I shut the laptop down, removed the battery again and proceeded to remove the LCD from the top lid's chassis to swap out. (I could have just moved the entire lid from one to the other laptop but the colour was slightly different and I was fussy)!

    Start by removing the 4 x rubber pads from each corner of the LCD and unscrewing these 4 x screws.



    Once done, you can now carefully pry open the edge of the LCD lid as below:



    Once this has been carefully remove (The outer black frame of the lid), we can remove the screws inside the lid that hold the actual LCD panel in.



    You also need to unplug the LCD controller panel's plugs and unscrew a grounding wire.





    Do the same for the other LCD panel and remember which one is working and which doesn't. Swap the working LCD over into the lid chassis you would like to use and screw everything back in. Make sure the cables are not getting pinched anywhere and run neatly out the bottom of the lid. Plug your two connectors back in to the LCD controller at the bottom of the lid and screw your grounding wire (black) back in (this is also next to the two cables at the bottom of the lid).

    13. Re-assemble the lid and finally reconnect your LCD signal/power cable back to the laptop's motherboard. Fasten the 4 x screws (2 x on each side) that hold the LCD Lid and panel to the laptop's main chassis. Route the wireless pigtail wire back under the keyboard panel through the hole under the wireless card and reconnect the two pigtail connectors to the wireless card. Replace the back panel that covers the RAM and wireless card.





    14. Place the keyboard ribbon connector back in and snap the black retainer clip over the ribbon to hold it in place. Screw the two screws back in to hold the keyboard down.

    15. Replace the hinge panel over the LCD connector on the motherboard (you'll need to fold the LCD all the back as far as it will go first). This panel is the same panel that has your power button on and is the same panel we removed earlier in step 3.

    Replace the 3 x screws on the back hinges and ensure you haven't missed any other screws anywhere and that everything looks good to go.

    Replace your battery, lock the battery in and power up. You should hopefully now have a working LCD! Enjoy.



    Hope this helps someone wanting to fix or replace their LCD panel in the future!
    Asus P5Q Pro P45 :: E8400 @ 4.1GHz 24/7 :: ATI HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 bios modded to 840/1150 :: 2GB OCZ ATI DDR915 @ 4-4-4-12 :: WD 750GB :: Dell TrueColour 24" Widescreen LCD :: Modded CM690

    Black Ice GTS-Lite 360 rad :: D-Tek Fuzion rev.2 CPU block :: EK Multires 100 :: D-TEK DB-1 pump :: EK HD4870 Crossfire waterblock

  2. #2
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    You know, when I worked for Dell a few years back, this would have been hella handy to have access too!
    Had to learn it the hard way... on a customers laptop! lol

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by IFMU View Post
    You know, when I worked for Dell a few years back, this would have been hella handy to have access too!
    Had to learn it the hard way... on a customers laptop! lol
    Same thing here hah, already had to crack open my gateway a bunch of times to fix the damn power connector.

  4. #4
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    lol, well the best way of learning is by doing imo. So if it ends up being a risk to the customer's laptop, so be it! At least if you screw up, the next time around you'll know exactly what to do.
    Asus P5Q Pro P45 :: E8400 @ 4.1GHz 24/7 :: ATI HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 bios modded to 840/1150 :: 2GB OCZ ATI DDR915 @ 4-4-4-12 :: WD 750GB :: Dell TrueColour 24" Widescreen LCD :: Modded CM690

    Black Ice GTS-Lite 360 rad :: D-Tek Fuzion rev.2 CPU block :: EK Multires 100 :: D-TEK DB-1 pump :: EK HD4870 Crossfire waterblock

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shogan View Post
    lol, well the best way of learning is by doing imo. So if it ends up being a risk to the customer's laptop, so be it! At least if you screw up, the next time around you'll know exactly what to do.
    Heh true, and I could have claimed it was something else and gotten them new parts too. lol

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