Tag: backlight repair

Macbook pro 2010 backlight repair

by prattspodsltd

This week we received a macbook pro 15” 2010 from a regular customer of ours.
It was sent in for a backlight repair after water damage.
Our customer has already cleaned the board but this has not resolved the issue.
When we received the device firstly we make sure that it boots and shows a display on an external monitor, which it does. Then we do the torch test to make sure that the fault is no backlight and not no display. We can see the apple logo so we know that the image is being displayed and we are up against a backlight problem.
Next we open the macbook to inspect the board around the LVDS FPC (screen connector), we can clearly see 2 pins that are burnt out (pins 20 & 21) which are responsible for sending voltage for the backlight to the screen. We could see that the connector was burnt out, which would need replacing. We then removed the lvds cable (cable from motherboard to screen) from the connector to check this and this seemed fine from visual inspection. Next we powered on the macbook to check the voltages getting to the lvds connector. The backlight voltages where not present so we disconnected the battery and tested the fuse which was blown. After replacing voltage was restored so we knew that we should just have to replace the connector to have the clients macbook back up and running.
We applied leaded solder to the 30 pin LVDS FPC to lower the melting point of the alloy. Next we used our hot air station to heat the connector and remove it. We then cleaned the pads and surrounding area, and lined up the new FPC. After this we applied new solder to all of the joints, cleaned again and checked the connections.
All looked good so we reassembled the macbook and powered it up. The screen lit straight up proving that the repair had worked as expected.

We repair macbook boards on a daily basis, often after apple have quoted hundreds to replace the board itself rather than repairing it. Backlight problems are very common, along with no image, graphics faults and power issues. If your experiencing any issues with your macbook please feel free to get in touch

iPad Air 1 half backlight repair

by prattspodsltd

Recently we had an iPad Air 1 in with backlight problems after a regular customer had replaced someones digitizer. This is a very common fault if the LCD is disconnected whilst the screen is on, and is usually caused by a blown filter.

We see this fault, amongst other backlight issues on idevices on a daily basis, we always start by checking with a known good screen. We then visually inspect the connectors and backlight circuits. Next we check filters and fuses which are usually found visually before testing. This is followed by checking for shorts and then we check our voltages.
70% of the time we will be able to physically see what the issue is with backlight faults, which usually makes fault finding very easy. This particular job just needed a quick visual check to see that one of the backlight filters had blown.
We removed the filter to find that one pad had also burnt off. This was not a major problem as we were able to run a micro jumper from the end of the remainnig trace onto the new filter to restore the connection.
This brought the ipad back to life restoring the full backlight.
We cleaned it up and sent it back on its way for another speedy repair and a happy customer that will come back again.
We take pride in our work and ensure that every job brings a happy customer at the end of it. If you have an issue with your device, or if you run a repair business and need a reliable company to outsource your board repairs to please feel free to get in touch.