2010 MacBook Pro 13" - Dead Backlight

[rjkucia]

Hi all, I've got a 2010 MacBook Pro that works mostly well, except the display has a bad backlight. When I first got it a few years ago it would work on and off, but now it doesn't seem to work at all. The screen itself displays a picture just fine, which you can see if you hold a flashlight up to it, and the video out works as well. The machine had some water damage before I got it, but it seems pretty mild and may or may not be related to this issue. Where should I start with diagnosing this? I could just replace the whole display, but I'd prefer not to since that'd probably cost almost the value of the computer at this point. Thanks!

 

[Kai Robinson]

Water damage won't be the display, it'll be the LVDS connector, or the backlight driver IC.

 

[rjkucia]

Thanks, I've considered the LVDS cable before but didn't know about the backlight driver. Looks like the backlight driver would be really hard to replace, the LVDS cable would be rough but still doable. Do you know if there's certain behavior that's more characteristic of one or the other?

 

[Kai Robinson]

The LVDS cable probably is fine, its more likely the LVDS connector on the logic board side of things. The backlight driver is an LP8550 - commonly available these days, and pretty easy to replace with even a basic hot air station - flood the chip with flux, heat it, remove it, clean the pads with a little braid and very little pressure. Place the new chip down in the correct orientation, heat back up til it pulls itself into the right position (you can prod it gently with the tips of a pair of tweezers) and then clean the board with a little IPA.

See the Louis Rossmann video here for a few details, it's for a MacBook Air, but the principle is identical, only the location differs.