Tecra 8100: solid vertical white & screen goes blank

[GeorgeD]

Hello,

My Tecra 8100 has (or used to have) what seems to be a 'known fault': screen goes blank, can be got back by pressing fn+f5 or the little metal button.
It also acquired a solid vertical white line about 1mm wide and about 30mm from the left hand edge. I managed to stop the blanking (backlight?) problem (thankyou to those who replied to my previous, now locked, question!) by taking the cover off the screen and unplugging and replugging the inverter. So now the screen always stays on. Unfortunately the white line is still there, and whereas previously the screen was normal except for the line, now everything to the right of it (i.e. all but 1" of the screen) is just multicoloured stripes.

What do you think? I've been told that all the inverter does is power the backlight, which suggests the lines problem is something else. But they happened at the same time. Also, as far as I can remember, when I was fiddling about with the inverter connection the lines problem came and went (then came and stayed). Could it still be a bad inverter connection? Or a broken inverter? Or more likely to be something else?

cheers,
George

[billnotben-537665904]

Someone may say I'm wrong but a complete line gone wrong on a TFT usually means one of the screens major connections is broken.

[Juan28]

Hi

There must be definitely a hardware problem. You should contact the service
Please check your other posting:
http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=8201&messageID=28323#28323

[GeorgeD]

Thanks for your replies. As you say it looks like maybe a bad connection. So having apparently fixed the backlight problem by fiddling around with a plug, is there likely to be a similar one for the actual screen that has come loose? In which case where would it be? I found instructions on how to take the screen off; would I find any connections there?

cheers,
George

[Barrie]

Hi George

You will be very lucky if someone can give you precise information about that. Please be careful about disassembling. If you have no experience please don’t do it alone. The hardware components and connectors are very sensitive and small mistake can damage something.

[GeorgeD]

Yes I suppose I am hoping for a lot! But I went to a couple of repair shops and they wanted a quarter of what I bought it for just to look at it. If it really is just a loose connection then I'd like to have a go, especially if I can do it without risking anything except the screen which isn't working anyway.

[jmatthews]

If it indeed is a loose connection its really no more difficult then when you undone the display to reconnect the inverter. A few more screws and you will be able to lift the display off the harness and check the connector in that connects the display to the inverter (not the white and pink wires, thats the inverter backlights, but the wire that plugs in to the left side of the inverter and goes up the back of the display and connects to it. It is a flat cable) When you reattach this cable if you choose not to take it to an ASP, make sure to tape it down good so it does not come loose again. After this if the problem is not resolved, your display is broken and will need to be replaced. It can be costly.

[GeorgeD]

Fixed it! (sort of...)

I took the screen off, found the flat cable as you said, but couldn't find the connector. The cable turns into a lot of delicate looking wires that go under a tape that I didn't dare pull off. But I found that if I pressed hard on the edge of the screen in just the right place then the picture came back. So I've put a very little bolt through the case just above the screen to do the pressing. Probably not the best way but it works!

The vertical white line's still there though; it's never gone away.

Thanks for your help!

Topic closed

cheers,
George