2005FPW backlight bleed fix.

I found out about this from this french forum. It involves fixing or at least greatly reducing backlight bleed on the Dell 2005FPW. I decided to give it a shot as soon as my monitor arrived today. Mine had moderate backlight bleed, honestly it doesn't even bother me but I figured I might as well try and fix it...

Here are before and after shots - as you can see the bleeding is reduced a lot, although I think I could get rid of it almost completely if I went back and used more electrical tape but the monitor is kind of a pain in the butt to dismantle. (It most likely will void your warranty as well)

Before


After


Here's how I did it.

First, take the monitor off the stand and remove the 4 black screws on the VESA mount.


Next, here's the icky part - you must pop off the front bezel. It's held on by plastic clips. The easiest way to do this that I could find was to go in through the slits on the bottom of the monitor frame. Use one or two thin flathead screwdrivers. Start by prying into the slit and go inward toward the middle of the monitor to get the first clip undone. Basically once you get one clip undone you can just slide the screwdriver around the edge of the frame and pop off all the others. Take care not to scratch the shit out the frame as it is pretty weak plastic.


So now you have all the clips undone, flip the monitor over (oh yeah, it's good to lay a towel down so you don't muck up the screen) and pull off the back - it should come off effortlessly.


Remove this little piece of metal covering some plugs. It pops off easily.


Here are the previously mentioned plugs, the french website called them neon connectors, I honestly don't know what the hell they are for but unplug them anyways so you can get the steel panel off.


Another icky part - carefully pull the circuitry off the front bezel. It's glued on but comes off relatively easily - just don't bend it too much. And don't worry - it sticks right back on.


Remove the 4 screws at each corner on the sides of the LCD panel. This will allow you to take off the steel apparatus that holds all the circuit boards.


As you're taking the steel apparatus off, unplug this little guy under it. Squeeze the metal clips on the sides to get it off. It's nice to have a friend or roommate to hold the steel part while you do this but it can be done alone.


The LCD panel reveals its true identity.


Flip the panel over. There's a steel frame around the whole thing held on by plastic and metal clips. Take this off.


Your monitor should now look like this.


Now, for the fixing. Get a roll of electrical tape, cut it in half width-wise. I found this easiest to do by cutting the tape while it was still on the roll with a razor blade, right down the middle. Apply tape to the very edge of the black part of the glass and wrap it around the edge of the frame. I didn't get a chance to experiment here, I just figured it's best to keep it off the black but over the silver. Feel free to mess around here. Apply this tape wherever you had bleeding or just do it all around the egde of the whole thing. Don't worry about getting tape on the plastic flaps on some of the egdes, it won't hurt it.




Ok, you're done fixing. Now put it all back together, remember to plug every thing back in that you unplugged (wide plug under the steel plate, 4 smaller plugs over the steel plate). Stick the circuit board for the front bezel buttons back in place, make sure it's lined up properly. Everything should snap and screw back together easily. Plug it back in and see how much better it is.

Some thoughts on my experience - I only regret not putting tape all the way around the LCD, I still have one spot of bleed on the bottom right. I'll probably end up fixing it later. I managed to undo all the clips without scratching anything, it doesn't look like it was ever opened. Is this all worth it? Who knows. I had fun though.

Excellent. You know, you could probably have a nice little business repairing these things. Or maybe even buy returns from Dell cheap, fix them, and resell...

Cool post.

I've had my 2005FPW for almost a year now and I just love the crap out of this thing. You can only see the bleeding if the screen is black and the room is dark anyways. I always noticed that I could change the level of bleeding just by pushing on the lcd screen and the frame around the edges. I always thought the problem was the mounting and not the actual lcd screen itself. Now I can see what's going on inside this thing.

They have really nice monitors that aren't put together very well. Kind of makes you wonder why Dell doesn't just engineer them right in the first place, then get some good quality control procedures in place at the factories. So what if it costs an extra 5 bucks a monitor.

Let's hope Dell never starts selling things like airplanes or hospital equipment.

Originally Posted by Cygnus_X1

Cool post.
They have really nice monitors that aren't put together very well..

Yep. Looks like the backlight bleed issue could have been fixed long ago by a piece of rubber or plastic. Wonder why their engineers never figured it out? Maybe lack of interest.

Thanks for the write-up, looks like an improvement over the original. I may try this as well if I end up being stuck with the 2005FPW.

TZ

Originally Posted by ho72

Yep. Looks like the backlight bleed issue could have been fixed long ago by a piece of rubber or plastic. Wonder why their engineers never figured it out? Maybe lack of interest.

Dell probably just doesn't care to have their engineers fix it. It could probably easily be fixed by making this gray piece overlap the LCD slightly more and maybe putting a black finish on it.

Excellent post, this should be STICKY!!! Some try this and post their results up here

Wouldn't this void the Dell warranty?

It seems like too much for to me anyways. I would just call Dell to send me a new one.

Yes, as I said it will most likely void your warranty. But it seems that almost all 2005s have this problem so the chances of actually getting a good one through Dell are pretty slim. This isn't for everyone, it definitely requires a sense of adventure to take apart a brand new otherwise perfectly good $400 monitor.

edit: I might add, however, that there are no tamper evident seals anywhere on or inside this thing. The only evidence of it being opened would be the electrical tape but then again Dell would actually have to take it apart completely to find that which I highly doubt they would do.

Wow awesome post. I was going to take a look at that French forum (from na earlier post), to see what it involved. Way to much for me, I am bound to screw something up with this. It's nice to see it in English now for everyone else though.

Originally Posted by Puterguru

Wow awesome post. I was going to take a look at that French forum (from na earlier post), to see what it involved. Way to much for me, I am bound to screw something up with this. It's nice to see it in English now for everyone else though.

It's actually not that hard. I mean, I'm no engineer. Just an art student and I figured it out. I guess it just depends on being able to replace it if somehow you screw it up.

Maybe I missed this point, but did you put just a single layer or thickness of the ET around the screen? Do you think a double layer (or more) would be a benefit in the areas that tend to leak the most light?

I used only a single layer. I think that's all you would need as the tape is completely opaque. But it wouldn't hurt to try using more I suppose. Let me know if it changes anything.

Originally Posted by saltiness

I used only a single layer. I think that's all you would need as the tape is completely opaque. But it wouldn't hurt to try using more I suppose. Let me know if it changes anything.

AH. I misunderstood the purpose of the tape. I thought it was being used as a sort of cushion but instead it's used to block the light. I'm not sure how I came to that erroneous conclusion. Maybe my bad translation of the French site...

I'm not entirely sure if it's cushioning it or blocking the light, maybe it's doing both. It wouldn't hurt to try 2 or 3 layers of tape. I didn't even think of that.

Well, I received my replacement 2005 from Dell and there is a lot less backlight bleeding, which is a good thing. However, the color temp/brightness is not as uniform on the new monitor as it is on the old unit (which, of course, has a worse bleed problem).

SO, I didn't see it spelled out in your instructions, but I *assume* the metal housing that contains all the circuit boards also contains the backlights. If that's so, then I would also assume that a backlight swap would be viable. Yes? No?

No. The metal housing only contained circuit boards, the backlight is actually inside the housing of the actual LCD panel which I didn't open. I would assume you could open it and swap parts but it would probably be very difficult.

RATS!

Oh well, thanks anyway. And so much for the idea of user-replaceable lights....

Do you think this would work on other LCD monitors? I have a BenQ FP91G+ that has it down each side from top to bottom, and a new Samsung 204T that has it in the corners. (the X pattern). I am tired of losing money to ship them back for refund or RMA replacement.

I am extremely happy with the Samsung other than this little problem, if it were fixable by doing this procedure then I wouldn't bother to send it back then.

saltiness,
Thanks for the post. I have been wondering for awhile if using tape would solve the problem. Glad someone finally tried it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....post1026973588

Strange why Dell doesn't fix the problem when the fix is so easy?