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macbook pro early 2011 no led backlight lvds broken???

edited March 2013 in General
Hi,

I bought a broken mbp early 2011 on ebay thought it would be fun trying to fix it. It works fine but the led backlight is not working. I tried my logicboard on a different lcd and there was also no backlight. I also tested the lcd and the same no backlight. By looking at the lvds cable and the connector on logicboard I noticed that some small plastic parts from the cable are stuck inside of the lvds connector. I was not able to get them out of the lvds connector. Then i saw that also rwo pins of the connector were missing.f has someone ever tried soldering a lvds connector onto a logicboard??

Comments

  • edited March 2013
    Hi! Thanks for the post.

    I'm not an expert at unibody LED screen issues, but a lot of the time when the backlight is out, it's due to a small blown microfuse on the board, and the issue can be resolved by replacing/bridging the microfuse. Here's a discussion on this site related to the issue:

    https://www.rdklinc.com/answers/discussion/22/dead-logic-board

    My main question is, does the screen still work (with backlight out) even minus the two pins, and did it originally have the same issue before you opened the machine and disconnected the display connector? Also, when you say you tried a different LCD, do you mean you tried an entirely different screen assembly, with cable and all? And are you 100% sure this is a known-good screen assembly, i.e. have you seen it working with a backlight on another computer? Sometimes people get into trouble by assuming a part is good when in fact it's not, and that leads them to incorrect conclusions.

    If you have tried a screen assembly that you have seen working on another machine, and it still doesn't work, that's conclusive evidence that the board is the problem. On some machines you can bridge the microfuse with tweezers, power on, and if you get a backlight, that tells you that the microfuse is the issue.

    I believe that in unibody machines the inverter-type function (light to the screen) and the video signal are both in the same cable, so conceivably some missing pins could have to do with power and therefore lead to the backlight being out. On the other hand, often various pins on a connector are not used at all, and so it's irrelevant that they are broken off...I don't have the schematics, so I just don't know.

    I have never soldered a video connector on a unibody, and I wouldn't trust myself to do it. I would search eBay for "MacBook logic board repair", and there are many companies out there that can do these kinds of things (as well as fix the fuse, if that's the problem). Some of these companies know what they are doing, and others are amateurs who should be avoided like the plague. As I mentioned, though, I think the most important thing is to logically determine as absolutely as you can that the board is the problem, before putting it under the knife.

    Hope that sort of helps. :-)

    John
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