I have an Acer TravelMate 4402WLMi. It's old but it does what I need
which is mostly nothing as I rarely use it. Since the iPhone, there's no
need to lug this around to check business email.

A couple years ago the hinges...er...I mean where the hinges attached to
the top...failed. The hinges are very high friction to hold it open and
Acer's design was really poor in concentrating the forces involved to
very small areas of the plastic top. It just cracked completely through
on both sides. And I didn't even use it much. Rather than toss the
whole thing I did a kludge repair with some bits of metal, screwed to the
hinges and pop riveted to the top.

The metal bits eventually broke (that hinge friction is REALLY high) so I
did a new and improved kludge repair recently. I was all set to submit
to the "There I Fixed It" site except no more screen illumination. (I
can see the faint image so it's not the LCD).

So the questions are these:

What is the failure mode for the cold cathode lamp? Do they suddenly
just stop working, especially if the screen is got handled a lot?

This piece of junk isn't worth putting any money in but I did go ahead
and order (from a Chinese web site) the inverter card ($8). But still no
help.

Should I be able to read some sort of high-ish voltage on the wires going
to the bulb (this was be with a DMM). I saw nothing reading the output
connector on the old inverter card. Haven't checked this new one but
suspect it would read zero as well. No voltage = no illumination.
Unless maybe the DMM drags it down. Haven't tried putting a scope on it.
If the inverter is good and there's no output I don't know where else to
look.

Anything else I should look at before pitching it? I did look at where
the LCD ribbon cable and inverter input line combine into a single
connector but don't see anything obvious nor is there anything in the
BIOS that would seem to shut off screen illumination.

It's junk but I'd keep it going if I can.

Steve Kraus wrote in message
m...
I have an Acer TravelMate 4402WLMi. It's old but it does what I need
which is mostly nothing as I rarely use it. Since the iPhone, there's no
need to lug this around to check business email.

A couple years ago the hinges...er...I mean where the hinges attached to
the top...failed. The hinges are very high friction to hold it open and
Acer's design was really poor in concentrating the forces involved to
very small areas of the plastic top. It just cracked completely through
on both sides. And I didn't even use it much. Rather than toss the
whole thing I did a kludge repair with some bits of metal, screwed to the
hinges and pop riveted to the top.

The metal bits eventually broke (that hinge friction is REALLY high) so I
did a new and improved kludge repair recently. I was all set to submit
to the "There I Fixed It" site except no more screen illumination. (I
can see the faint image so it's not the LCD).

So the questions are these:

What is the failure mode for the cold cathode lamp? Do they suddenly
just stop working, especially if the screen is got handled a lot?

This piece of junk isn't worth putting any money in but I did go ahead
and order (from a Chinese web site) the inverter card ($8). But still no
help.

Should I be able to read some sort of high-ish voltage on the wires going
to the bulb (this was be with a DMM). I saw nothing reading the output
connector on the old inverter card. Haven't checked this new one but
suspect it would read zero as well. No voltage = no illumination.
Unless maybe the DMM drags it down. Haven't tried putting a scope on it.
If the inverter is good and there's no output I don't know where else to
look.

Anything else I should look at before pitching it? I did look at where
the LCD ribbon cable and inverter input line combine into a single
connector but don't see anything obvious nor is there anything in the
BIOS that would seem to shut off screen illumination.

It's junk but I'd keep it going if I can.


No DVM on the inverter output because of the ignition voltage, I use a neon
and a few 10 Meg droppers