[HP 15-AY013NR] Display issues before and after replacing display cable

[menorton]

Hello!

For the past few weeks, my wifes laptop (HP Notebook 15-AY013NR) has progressively been getting worse when she raises/closes the lid. The display would flicker then go to black if the lid was not at the proper/perfect angle. Everything else about the laptop was fine. Researching online, I saw that this was a common issue and generally the root cause is replacing the Display cable. This whole process is detailed in the Maintenance and Service Guide that can be found here on the HP website.

In this guide, it gives the part number for the non-touchscreen display cable to be 813943-001. I found that cable here on Amazon. I order the cable and take the laptop apart, taking plenty of pictures along the way. I have built all my gaming PCs for the past 20 years and I work in IT, so I'm fine with computers. After making sure all connections were good and all screws were back in, I start up the laptop and now its worse than before. There is no display at all except for about 30 seconds in when there is some backlight power.

I know the laptop is working because I can hear the cpu fan and even hear the Windows chime. So its booting up properly just not displaying anything. I turn it off and strip it down again, this time double checking to make sure everything is connected. I verify the display wires, the display, system board, everything. Reassemble everything, turn it on, and same issue - no display at all, and 30 seconds in I get some backlight.

Future troubleshooting steps:

• Connect laptop via HDMI out to external monitor, see if I can access windows
• Remove amazon cable and replace it with known bad cable. See if I can see display now

What could have caused this display to get even worse? Did I get a bad cable from Amazon? Was the cable not the problem to begin with, but the display? Am I not doing something right, even though I am reading the service guide verbatim?

 

[killster1]

Hello!

For the past few weeks, my wifes laptop (HP Notebook 15-AY013NR) has progressively been getting worse when she raises/closes the lid. The display would flicker then go to black if the lid was not at the proper/perfect angle. Everything else about the laptop was fine. Researching online, I saw that this was a common issue and generally the root cause is replacing the Display cable. This whole process is detailed in the Maintenance and Service Guide that can be found here on the HP website.

In this guide, it gives the part number for the non-touchscreen display cable to be 813943-001. I found that cable here on Amazon. I order the cable and take the laptop apart, taking plenty of pictures along the way. I have built all my gaming PCs for the past 20 years and I work in IT, so I'm fine with computers. After making sure all connections were good and all screws were back in, I start up the laptop and now its worse than before. There is no display at all except for about 30 seconds in when there is some backlight power.

I know the laptop is working because I can hear the cpu fan and even hear the Windows chime. So its booting up properly just not displaying anything. I turn it off and strip it down again, this time double checking to make sure everything is connected. I verify the display wires, the display, system board, everything. Reassemble everything, turn it on, and same issue - no display at all, and 30 seconds in I get some backlight.

Future troubleshooting steps:

• Connect laptop via HDMI out to external monitor, see if I can access windows
• Remove amazon cable and replace it with known bad cable. See if I can see display now

What could have caused this display to get even worse? Did I get a bad cable from Amazon? Was the cable not the problem to begin with, but the display? Am I not doing something right, even though I am reading the service guide verbatim?

perhaps its a another cable. try power it on with out the laptop put together for testing purposes. maybe its pinched funny or a faulty cable, sorry to hear your issues even when you got what you thought was a new cable to fix the issue. maybe it is the backlight cable that needed to be changed.

 

[menorton]

I have already ordered another replacement cable, from the same vendor, to see if maybe I got a defective replacement cable. You gotta love Amazon Prime next day with free returns.

I will be re-inserting the known defective cable to see if I can get the laptop to return to its original (albeit defective) state. That would be an improvement from right now

As for the backlight cable, I don't believe the laptop has one. Going into the display, which I stripped down, there are just 3 cables: Two for WLAN, and One for display. This Display cable has 3 connectors, one for the Webcam, one for the Display panel, and one for the System Board.

 

[killster1]

of course there is a backlight power cable!

 

[menorton]

I dont think my model has a backlight power cable. According to the Service Manual, the Display Assembly guide on Page 77 lists all the parts for the display. They are:

• Raw Display Panel
• Antenna
• Display Bezel
• Display Cable (REPLACED)
• Display Enclosure
• Hinges (left and right)
• Webcam/microphone

 

[killster1]

ya your right just watched someone replace the screen of your laptop and it only had the one connector visible

 

[menorton]

Ok so I fixed the laptop and it works perfectly now. There were two issues:

1. CPU Thermal Paste
Since the laptop was about 4 years old, I figured the thermal paste could use some changing. What better to use then the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut i had on hand. I was applying to the cpu and gpu dies correctly, but I didn't know (and the service manual even said to do this) that you had to apply the paste to both the die and the heatsink, not just the die. I'm used to desktop CPUs where you only apply it to the integrated heat spreader (IHS). Fixing this allowed me to boot to windows and use an external monitor

2. Display wire wasn't perfectly routed
Really annoyed about this one. The connections were fine, and I am even using the original 'bad' wire. The issue is that with the new wire I bought, I had the wire being routed under a hinge when it should have gone over a hinge. wtf ugh. When I changed that, the display worked just fine.

Cools to amazon that I get to return these wires. I only worked on this for hours on saturday, sunday, and monday. Lame.