The screen on my Dell Latitude D620 is very dim. Do I have to replace the entire LCD screen?
My Dell latitude D620 laptop is working fine but my screen is very dim, I can still make out what it says on the screen but it’s pretty difficult. When I turn the system on it has never flashed at full brightness, it just remains dim. I called Dell tech support and they said I need to replace the entire LCD screen, which I hope isn’t the case. I thought it would be the inverter or the backlight but they said the backlight and LCD aren’t separate entities, but that the LCD screen would have to be replaced to solve the problem. I’ve tried reconnecting a few different things under my keyboard to no avail. please help!
Most likely this problem is related to the inverter board witch you can replace without replacing the entire display assembly. Yes, on Dell laptops the inverter board is a part of the LCD screen, but you still can remove and replace the inverter board without replacing the LCD screen. Check out these instructions for taking apart the display assembly on a Dell Latitude D610 laptop. Take a look at the first six images. You can find a new LCD inverter for your Dell Latitude D620 here, it’s not expensive.
Also, this problem could be related to the backlight lamp (CCFL bulb) witch is located INSIDE the LCD screen. If that’s the case you’ll have to replace the whole screen. Alternatively, you can disassemble the LCD screen and replace just the backlight lamp but it’s not easy. You can easily damage the screen while replacing the backlight lamp. Anyways, here I posted instructions for replacing the backlight lamp.
Finally, this problem could be related to the motherboard or the video cable, but it’s not common.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
You have actually tried to increase the brightness from the keyboard, yes? Use Fn/uparrow to check that it is already at it’s brightest. I just got caught by this today!
June 26th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Ray Brownrigg,
Thank you for your suggestion. The guy asked a question about replacing the LCD screen and I assumed that Dell tech support already walked him through the troubleshooting steps, including adjusting the brightness settings. Maybe they didn’t.
I forgot to mention that he can try to adjust the LCD screen brightness using the keyboard keys.
Also, on some Dell laptops you can adjust the LCD screen brightness in the BIOS setup menu.
September 17th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
if you ask me, this isnt a fault on your D620, its just because this model has poor display brightness. We have 20+ of them in the office, they all have really dim display compared to the D600.
Havent found a solution as yet….
October 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I found advice elsewhere that worked for me….. so strangely….. If you shut down, take the battery out and press the button on it to discharge the static electricity, somehow this made my display work much better…….. as well as upping the brightness using fn+up arrow just to be sure……
December 9th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Since I am out on my warranty, I hope someone can help me troubleshoot the problem I’m having with the screen on my Latitude D620.
I usually use the laptop on an external monitor, through a docking station, while at home. Sometimes, I undock it and just use the laptop screen itself.
Recently, when I undocked the laptop, the display was all blurry, distorted (as if at a very low resolution and color scheme) and I was practically not able to use it.
Consequently, upon reading this and other threads, I replaced the inverter board…That did not solve the problem. I then replaced the whole screen & backlight, still with no success…What could this issue be??
To clarify, the image looks fine on an external monitor, projector, etc. but if I want to use the screen on the laptop itself, it’s pretty much dead (heavily distorted image with crazy colors and constantly flickering images, sometimes with no image at all – e.g. I cannot see anything upon entering the Bios and the Windows logo is almost invisible while the PC is booting)
A friend mentioned that the video card probably has digital / analogue chips for the laptop / external displays respectively and suggested that probably the digital one is dead…Is this a common problem? Where else could the issue be? I am clueless here…I’ve put a lot of $$ into this machine to upgrade memory, hdd, etc. and it would be a damn shame if I cannot continue using it, because of a stupid display issue.
Thanks!
December 9th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
G,
If you have a distorted image but the screen is still bright, it’s not related to the inverter. When inverter fails the backlight goes completely off. Just a note for other people reading this thread.
This problem could be related to the video cable. Have you noticed that the distortion pattern changes when you move the display? Apparently there is a short somewhere inside the LCD harness. First, try reconnecting the LCD cable on the motherboard (or video card) just to make sure it’s not a connection related problem. Second, try replacing the cable if you haven’t done it already.
If replacing the cable doesn’t help, most likely your friend is right, there could be a problem with the video card. In most cases the video card is integrated into the motherboard, which means you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Thanks for the quick reply. Will make sure to try your suggestions and hopefully get this thing resolved. I hope it’s not the videocard, because that would be painful
December 16th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Anybody know where I could get a video-card to LCD cable for the D620? I have searched throughout with no luck…
Thanks.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Hoping I can get some help. I am trying to hook a projector to my latitude d620. I hit fn and f8 and it is not displaying it to the projector. Any suggestions
June 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Joe,
Test your laptop with an external monitor instead of the projector. Can you get video on the external monitor?
June 8th, 2009 at 8:27 am
This is my first laptop (Dell Latitude D630). I got it about two weeks ago and installed Ubuntu (my OS of choice since 2006). It worked fine for me until a couple of days ago. The screen is too dim to be useful but I can use the laptop if I hook it up to an external monitor (the laptop display remains dim).
I found this thread that seems to be related to my problem. In particular the post that reads:
Alicia Sanderson Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I found advice elsewhere that worked for me….. so strangely….. If you shut down, take the battery out and press the button on it to discharge the static electricity, somehow this made my display work much better…….. as well as upping the brightness using fn+up arrow just to be sure……
The thing that I am wondering is which button is pressed (the power button?) to discharge the static electricity and was the AC adapter plugged in at the time?\
I tried taking out the battery and holding down the power button for 30 seconds or so (without the AC adapter plugged in) to no avail. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as I am out of town visiting my family and my access to the internet is limited at the time.
Thank You
September 19th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Hey,
Thanks for this informative article. My D620 backlight is messed up. It’s not dim, it’s off. With just the right lighting I can see the computer and monitor are alive.
So I’m thinking it’s my inverter board. There’s a 2 wire output on that board into the LCD, I’m assuming those are power and ground for the backlight, is that right? Is it as simple as measuring the voltage on those pins to determine if that’s my problem? Whats the expected voltage?
Thanks a lot!
TJ
September 19th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
TJ,
Most likely it’s either bad inverter or there the backlight lamp is bad.
Yep, these two wires goes to the backlight lamp inside the LCD screen.
You cannot measure voltage with a regular voltmeter, it will not work. The only way to narrow down the problem is testing the laptop with another known good inverter or backligth lamp.
If you have to guess, try replacing the inverter board first.
September 19th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Thanks for the quick reply. Just curious, why can’t I just measure the voltage with a regular voltmeter? I’m an electrical engineer, so don’t hold back the details.
Thanks again!
TJ
October 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
TJ,
I would assume that you can not measure the voltage with a regular voltmeter because the voltage is probably not DC nor AC. Like most flourecent lamp ballasts, it probably produces some sort of square wave voltage. With a standard voltmeter, the best that you might get is a voltage that would be a fraction of what it is really putting out, but at least you could tell if it was putting out something.
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:09 am
Thanks for your advice.It is very good for my problem. My problem is resloved. Thanks once again.
June 3rd, 2010 at 11:52 am
is this a very common problem? At the school district where I work (tech) we have had 13 laptops so far that have had this issue.. at first, it seemed like it was user error, but the more we got, the more we thought it could be a known issue…
October 16th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
FN and up arrow worked great!! Thank you!!
November 16th, 2010 at 8:19 am
I just bought a new lcd for my d620, also replaced the Inverter, the video cable, and put in a new keyboard. After all of that, my screen looks great, but, it is still very dim…
December 27th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Thank you for the thread on the screen brightness. FN/up arrow did the trick!
July 1st, 2011 at 8:10 am
I have a D620 that will POST for just a second and then goes immediately dim. I have replaced the inverter already, and all the connections seem to be secure.