melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

[ChaosLegionnaire]

i recently took my mom's old laptop out of storage and this happened to the screen. please refer to the attached pictures. any idea what happened? the screen seemed to have crumbled into tiny pieces of white plastic. did the high humidity do this to the screen? can moist air cause lcd plastics to degrade?

oh boy... not sure how i'm going to sell the laptop now... a pentium-m laptop prolly isnt worth anything these days...

[dmill89]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

i recently took my mom's old laptop out of storage and this happened to the screen. please refer to the attached pictures. any idea what happened? the screen seemed to have crumbled into tiny pieces of white plastic. did the high humidity do this to the screen? can moist air cause lcd plastics to degrade?

I would think probably think heat rather than humidity. Where was it stored? If it was some place like a garage, shed, attic, or commercial storage unit (the corrugated metal rental ones) it can absolutely get hot enough in the summer to cause plastic to deteriorate or even melt depending on what type of plastic it is. The same can apply if it is stored inside a building near a radiator/baseboard heater/furnace, etc.

oh boy... not sure how i'm going to sell the laptop now... a pentium-m laptop prolly isnt worth anything these days...

Not sure what the market is like in Singapore on these but in the US that would probably be worth less than $30 (in working condition, and only worth scrap with a bad screen).

[stj]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

is the brown nichotine or rust?

btw, i think those are p4, not p4m - very power hungry room heaters.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

it wasnt stored near anything hot or warm. just kept in a laptop bag on the shelf, away from sunlight. i guess even the tropical heat is too much for old stuff to handle.

the brown stuff is just mold growing on the plastic, i think. its been kept in a dark and humid environment so i guess even plastic would get mold.

and its indeed pentium m dothan core. i checked it before my mom bought it many years ago to make sure she bought the right stuff and the good stuff... lol!

[stj]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

if you have strange mold that likes plastic then maybe it's in between the defuser layers and you can try to clean it off.

[RukyCon]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

The only time i've seen something like that was with an water damaged NEC monitor.

[brethin]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

The only time i've seen something like that was with an water damaged NEC monitor.

That's what I was thinking.

[momaka]

Re: melted laptop screen? err... what happened?

Hard to tell because of the flash, but it looks to me like the anti-glare coating/layer may have started to come off. If that's the case, just remove the anti-glare coating entirely from the LCD. It will probably turn the screen into a glossy one, though.

And worse, some LCDs have the anti-glare coating/layer also fused with the polarizing screen - in which case, the screen will appear all white after the removal of this layer. But fear not! - The screen should still be visible with sun glasses (and some movie theater glasses too). Some people actually do this on purpose to create a "private screen" - a good idea if you want to watch pr0n at a public place and not have anyone else notice (or not anyone without sunglasses anyways).

By the way, what screen size is this? I have a non-working Dell Latitude D600 with supposedly a good screen and bad mobo. Maybe we can piece something together.

Pentium M is indeed quite slow and outdated these days, but with 1 GB of RAM and XP, it may still do some very VERY basic web browsing, or used as a word-typing PC. So not 100% useless. That, and the fact that this laptop likely has a serial port may make it useful for some folks who do hardware/firmware flashing.