Most likely reason for "System missing LCD Panel" message?

[britechguy]

I finally got around to putting the Dell Inspiron back together again. I have to believe the most likely reason for this message is because I did not get the connectors for the new touchscreen panel seated correctly. I've checked very carefully on the motherboard side, and that looks solid, so I'm presuming it's on the back of the screen, which means taking the lid off again (probably, but I could leave it in place and remove the bezel and screen), removing the tape, and playing with reseating the connector there.

But, I want to make sure that this is not more likely to be something else, like that I possibly damaged the cable, that would be a more likely probability, as I've never had this issue when doing a screen replacement in the past. I do have to say that the 40-pin ZIF-ish (I can't recall the real name right now) connector for the LCD is far more fidgety on this machine than some others have been. It's smaller and more difficult to seat.

 

[Markverhyden]

Don't know about that model. But I've had plenty of issues over the years with similar laptops as well as iMacs. Those wide cables with very narrow conductor exposure and those crazy flip down or slide in securing mechanisms are truly a pain. But those cables bear close inspection just before you reassemble. The conductor is razor thin throughout and can separate from the substrate at the ends. I've rarely had any issues with the part in-between, as in broken conductors, etc.

 

[britechguy]

@Markverhyden

Thanks for the insight. My intention is to keep things assembled and deal with "the lid side" with the base supported. I really suspect that if I actually screwed up the connector, it's on that side. This device uses a combo cable that terminates in the LCD connector with part that continues on for the camera/microphone. It's a bigger PITA to get oriented on the screen back for insertion. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that this is where I botched the process.

 

[Canadian Tech]

Even if those cables appear to be connected, if they're off on the slightest angle it would cause that connection issue. I once opened up a laptop of a client who's friend worked on it and they had put the LCD cable underneath the connector and in turn destroyed the connector. At that point it wasn't fixable as they had seperated the connector from the motherboard.

 

[britechguy]

@Canadian Tech

Thanks. I do know how fragile these things are, and I suspected finicky, too, but haven't hit this issue before.

I'm as certain as certain can be that everything is OK on the mobo side of the equation, but I suspect that my seating on the LCD side is just not right. I'll have time today to take this apart again if I'm lucky. Thankfully, the machine stays with me so time is not of the essence.

 

[Canadian Tech]

@Canadian Tech

Thanks. I do know how fragile these things are, and I suspected finicky, too, but haven't hit this issue before.

I'm as certain as certain can be that everything is OK on the mobo side of the equation, but I suspect that my seating on the LCD side is just not right. I'll have time today to take this apart again if I'm lucky. Thankfully, the machine stays with me so time is not of the essence.

With my bifocals I sometimes don't get those cables installed incorrectly so yeah it happens to the best of us.

 

[britechguy]

To bring this to a close: I had failed to seat the LCD connector as it should have been on the back of the screen.

A number of lessons have been learned:
1. Be very certain that this cable, which can be tricky to seat, is correctly seated.
2. NEVER tape in the screen until after you have confirmed that the screen is functioning.

I used a tiny bit of masking tape to hold the screen in place today until I had verified that the screen was functioning as expected. And I did this because it was so freakin' miserable to get that supposedly "pull to stretch and remove" screen mounting tape to do just that. Both sides broke off from the removal tabs long before I was anywhere near to having the entire strip removed. Thank heaven I was able to get under a corner and carefully run a metal scraper (very gently) under the short edges of the screen to get it to lift off and not break it in the process.

This is the first screen replacement where I didn't get the cable seated correctly on the first try, but I've learned what I will not do in the future until I'm sure. Today I laid down the mounting tape on the lid without removing the screen side of that double sided tape until I was absolutely certain that it was functioning. The tape was uncovered as the next to last step, and the reinstallation of the bezel was the final one.

 

[NviGate Systems]

Too bad they can't make something like how we used for vinyl advertisement. It was an adhesive that had glass beads that sat on top so you could move the item, but once you pushed down, the glass beads would sink in and no more moving around.

Maybe in application like this using force probably not the best lol

 

[britechguy]

@NviGate Systems

The way most screens fit into lids these days the tape is almost unnecessary. It could certainly be far less of a "death grip" type of tape and yet still give the screen that last little bit of stabilization from sliding.

By the time the screen is resting in its very carefully engineered "tray" in the lid, and the bezel is back on, it really can't move very much at all, if at all, side to side or up and down. The only thing the tape is really doing is keeping the bezel from being the only thing holding the screen into the lid itself.