That's the guide that I found. Did it help you out a lot? Can you give me a link to the CCFLs you used? I see you got a new inverter. Will I need a new one?
It gave me the idea. Its good to google around and see if anyone has taken apart your LCD model before. Mine had little info on it, so I just winged it. Looking for all the screws and little plastic tabs that hold it together.
Once inside and you can see your lcd, there are two types. Matrix, and other. You can do this hack on both, but one is a hellava lot harder.
The guide linked uses 'other'. The connection from the driver board to the actual glass LCD is once long giant brown connector at the bottom. You can see in the pictures that the CCFLs are easily accessible and can be changed.
If your LCD however has several smaller connections all along the top and side your pretty much boned, its matrix. It requires a special way of bending the metal and plastic in order to not break the connectors, the CCFLs are buried in very deep, and frankly I dont know how. You can still try it yourself, I read somewhere that someone successfully fixed his matrix LCD.
But if your LCD is non TFT and a couple years old, youll most likely have 'other'. Crack it open, and look inside it before purchasing CCFL's, maybe take a couple pictures and see which one you have. Also if you have 'other', measure your CCFLs to get the correct length.
As for CCFL's (and to answer your inverter question). My LCD was broken backwards. That is, the CCFLs worked perfectly fine, it was the inverter that was crapped out. So I purchased
2 of the cheapest (my lcd has 4 CCFLs, make sure to count how many you will need when you open it) duel cathode kits. Threw away the actual cathodes, wired in the inverter to the original cathodes and it works fine.
Looking online, it might be hard to find a 17inch CCFL, but the link in the guide (
here) should do you fine. As long as the inverter is working on your LCD. Looks like your going to have to solder a bit (This is about 450 volts AC, so make sure you do a good job with lots of shielding!). If you put in a new CCFL and it still doesnt work. Try putting in a new inverter. If a new inverter wired to a new CCFL doesnt work, then the LCD was toast in the first place.
If anything is confusing, Im always here
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