Gateway M320 Broken Screen

In ,
Ben Myers typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:09:33 -0500:
BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Ben Myers typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:25:27 -0500:
the wharf rat wrote:
In article ,
Justin wrote:
Should I get the entire LCD screen plus the plastic trim to fix
the line and broken hinge? Kill two birds with one bullet?

Laptops almost always decompose into a top unit consisting of the
lcd screen and related components and the bottom unit consisting of
everything else :-) You can usually buy one or the other on the
used market. Replacing the entire unit at once is much easier than
taking either one apart and replacing a sub-assembly, so try to buy
an entire top lid, plastic, LCD, and all.
Agreed. Taking apart a laptop LCD screen is a tedious and
time-consuming effort. And then there is getting it back together.

I guess it is all relative. If you are replacing LCDs all of the
time, it seems pretty easy. Although I guess your mind is running in
that auto pilot mode and you don't notice it being so tedious
anymore. grin
The line is possibly caused by a kink in one of the cables going to
the screen... Ben Myers

Yes and since the hinges are broken, that cable probably gets pulled
on a lot too.

No! I am right on the money. Disassembly of most any laptop screen
is tedious because one has to remove teeny-tiny screws,

You think those screws are teeny, you should see the screws for my Ultra
USB 2.5 portable hard drive. As it makes the screws in your glasses you
wear look huge. grin

pop out (and eventually replace) screw covers,

Speaking of which, I need to find a replacement for these. As once
removed, they have a habit of not staying back there for the long haul.
As within a few weeks or months, they start to fall back out again.

remove the front bezel (often made of thin fragile plastic), gently
remove the screen from the housing, disconnect and connect cables and
inverter. If you can do this all in 10 minutes or less with ANY brand
of laptop, you're awfully good.

10 minutes sounds about right for both removal and have the new one
installed. Although I have never timed it. I can if you would like the
next one I do.

Each and every brand has its own idiosyncracies of LCD disassembly.
Unless you are doing the same or similar models day after day, no way
can you do it in auto pilot mode, so quit being a royal cantankerous
pain in the ass.

We are talking about the Gateway MX models. There must be hundreds of
different MX models out there. And if you know how one of them comes
apart, you know how to take virtually all of them apart.

Given the choice, which is infrequent, I would far rather drop in a
complete LCD screen than tear down the assembly... Ben Myers

It is almost the same either way to me. Why which brands seems harder
for you?

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) - Windows XP SP2

In ,
BillW50 typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:54:19 -0600:
In ,
Ben Myers typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:09:33 -0500:
remove the front bezel (often made of thin fragile plastic)...

You know, more thinking about this. I think it feels more fragile than
you think it is. As I keep lots of spare parts and I am not so careful
as I used to be. And I am really surprised how much bending they can
really take. The only stuff which is what I would call is fragile would
be from the mid 90's and earlier.

Take the old Toshiba T1900 series for example in the mid 90's. As the
bottom shell needed to be split just to get to the hard drive. And you
had to be really careful when splitting it, as it would crack very easy
(it was very brittle). Although plastics today seem so much different.
As they can flex far much more than the older stuff. And maybe you are
just being too careful and thus why you are taking longer to
disassemble?

I had a couple of DVDs out of hundreds that wouldn't burn correctly. I
threw them in a junk box and to use them for something (make a clock or
something). Well later I decided to throw them away and I was going to
just snap them in half. Well I bent them over 90° and they just wouldn't
snap in two. But rather they popped right back in shape. I was really
impressed! I think I threw them back in my junk box. grin

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) - Windows XP SP2

On 12/23/09 3:26 PM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Justin typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:20:58 -0500:
On 12/23/2009 10:35 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Justin typed on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:30:43 -0500:
Hi folks, I have an old Gateway M320 with a line through the screen.
Here are a picture of the line - obviously I need to replace the
screen. http://www.imagebam.com/image/ad322960885145
I know its not the video drivers since the line is there before the
OS loads.

My first question is, what part number do I need to replace the
screen? I searched eBay for M320 LCD and I get some results with
and without the external plastic trim.

Hi Justin! Well that could be the LCD, video cable, or video card on
the motherboard. Does it look okay on an external monitor? If so, it
there is a good chance that another LCD will take care of it. But no
guarantees.

Yes, it looks fine on an external monitor.
Should I replace the cable first? Can I check just the cable? I
should probably download a service manual.

I believe the cable is part of the LCD anyway on that one. And I don't
think the Gateway service manuals are available online anymore. Oh wait,
some are still there. And the ones that are not, I believe you can
request them through email. And yes, that would be a good idea.

Then there is the broken plastic on the rear of the hinges - thanks
to somebody picking up the machine by the screen. Several times
here are the pictures of each hinge.
What do I need to replace that?
http://www.imagebam.com/image/bd140260885151
and
http://www.imagebam.com/image/3c46c160885152

Should I get the entire LCD screen plus the plastic trim to fix the
line and broken hinge? Kill two birds with one bullet?

Yes most definitely. I've never seen the Gateway hinges break there.
You lucked out. As usually they break off from the bottom clamshell.
And it is usually only the left one. And the old fix was to replace
the whole bottom case. And used prices were outrages. Although the
prices has dropped a lot since one bright guy has manufactured an
aluminum block that screws into the video port socket. Like this
one, eBay # 320466252183.

They didn't break. They were broken. I have a Macbook Pro now and
the person who broke the damn thing by picking it up by the screen
isn't allowed near my machines anymore.
Problem solved.

Lol That was a smart idea. ;-)

Speaking about lifting up a machine by the screen, which is usually a
bad thing to do. But I noticed these Asus EeePC 700 series netbooks,
this practice is just fine. As the lid and the hinges can support the
weight many times over the weight of the netbook itself.

Those Netbooks are lightweight enough that its probably OK to do that.

I don't know about the other ones with larger screens than the 7 inch
displays. But those 7 inch are much smaller than the lid and have the
speakers on both sides of the screen. And 7 inch LCDs are so much
lighter too.

My plan is to get it into somewhat decent shape and eBay it

Careful! Whatever you spend on it in parts, you may not get back in
reselling it. I noticed just in the last year, used laptop prices have
really dropped. Although the parts, no so much. I guess all of those
newer laptops prices are getting cheaper and cheaper is causing this.

Yeah, I know.
I need to keep that in check. It might be more worth it just to replace
the drive and sell it with the broken screen.
Open it up internationally and let some sap in Pakistan buy it.


- or use it as a Linux machine. I wouldn't mind having a POS laptop
that I can take somewhere and not care about.

That would be a good idea too. ;-)

The hard drive went bac on this thing two years ago, and I'm int he
process of getting another one. I also repalced the keyboard for a
whole $7.00.

That is a great price for a keyboard. And if you don't move laptops and
use them like a desktop. The hard drives seems to last forever. Although
using them as portable devices, their life really varies. One of the
pluses when installing a SSD drive as the moving around doesn't effect
them.

I got a 120GB hard drive for $30.
the keyboard was direct from China - it tok a month to get here


So in summary, I should look for a cheap LCD assembly off eBay. The
cheapest one I found was $86 off eBay. I tried to make an offer but
he declined. $86 is more than half the value of the entire machine.
I'll wait a bit and keep looking, maybe somethign will turn up after
Christmas.

Well if you are patient long enough, you might find one around 50 bucks.
But that doesn't happen too often.


I waited a month for the keyboard - I'm patient!