Saturday, November 21, 2009 7:01 PM
My Microsoft PDC Laptop suffered from dead zones on the screen after a few days. I had a couple options. One of them being to return the laptop. The other one was to open it and fix it myself. Since I am quite impatient, I decided to try and fix it.
I made a video and I put a few steps down on how I fixed the dead zones.
1. Unscrew the two little screws next to the pivot point of the screen. They are under two rubber nubs. They are easy to remove with a jewlers screwdriver (I highly suggest using this method).
2. Push around the screen bezel until it pops up. Do this gently and without a lot of pressure. It should snap up pretty easy.
3. Unscrew the 4 screws holding the touch screen together.
4. Snap up the little plastic connector on the large ribbon cable in the bottom left of the screen. You may need to remove a piece of clear tape on it. (The connector snaps up from the top of it. It does not slide forward or back).
5. Gently move the screen away from the connector. There are two little screws on the left hand of the touch screen. Loosen them and push the metal bar on the screen up away from the connector and retighten those screws. (This will push the connector in better when it is mounted.
6. Clean the connector with a contact cleaner. I used tuner cleaner from radio shack. I'm sure there are alternatives. (You may omit this step and it could work fine.)
NOTE: When I did this, it would work for an hour. It wasn't until I removed the black strip on the top of the connector that it started working again. (The black strip is on the screen's connector. Not the connector on the board!)
7. Push the connector in tight and put snap the connector back down.
8. Screw in the four screen screws. At this point. I booted up and tested. That is up to you.
9. Snap back on the bezel and finish up.
Video: