ACER Iconia TAB A200 tablet LCD swapping blacks for reds after mild fall. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: AMR Labs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2023, 10:56:36 pm
content: My trusty Acer Iconia TAB A200 10" Android tablet that I been using exclusively for occasional night PDF reading took a bit of a tumble (from about 2 feet to the floor), and I think one of the corners is what hit the floor. Fortunately nothing broke at least not externally, and I even had fitted a substantial silicon bumper case as protection which completely covers the sides and back of the tablet. But even so upon turning it on the next time I noticed that all the areas that used to be deep/pure black of whatever is being displayed are now showing in bright red. Welcome to Mars...This problem only seems to affect those very specific areas that have any deep blacks, and the rest of whatever is being displayed on the screen looks almost perfect in its correct colors as long as it does not contain any extensive black areas. For example if I go into the file manager the window looks almost normal (its mostly blues and whites with dark grey fonts), except for the very bottom where to the left the back, home and application icons are located, and that stretches also all the way to the right where the clock and battery icons etc, are located and that used to have a black background which is now red.The images in PDFs look decent as long as there are not too much blacks involved, as those areas will otherwise be shown as red patches instead. The text fonts look normal except unless they are deep/pure black in which case they will appear in red.Again zero cracks or signs of any damage on the screen or case at all that I can see, mind you again that bumper case at least worked in that sense. Alas it seems something broke inside as it definitively does not appear to be that the LCD panel itself is causing this problem, but obviously I am not 100% sure as I have never seen something similar happen. Searches for similar symptoms on mostly computer monitors only got me inconclusive information.I think I have the iFixit guide to open the tablet, had copied it some time ago for the future when the battery might need to be replaced, so may attempt to open it next week. But wanted to try and have an idea of what I might need to be looking for in there before proceeding. Hoping for a half unseated video connector or something the likes that might be an easy fix.Anyone?PS. Will post a couple of pics of the screen showing the red "effects" later this evening.Mars signing off for now.

author: AMR Labs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2023, 11:43:24 pm
content: Here are a couple of images. Two pairs of them are comparisons between the front cover of two manuals in normal view as they should display, and how they are now being displayed on my tablet.Note the file explorer window is almost normal except for the red bar on the bottom of the screen which should be black instead.Hope this helps.EDIT: just added the image of the HP67 emulator that i also have installed on the tablet. Look at the h function key (in yellow circle) is completely red instead of being black. Same with the background of the label at the bottom is also red. And in general the background of all the keys that normally is black, now it displays as a pinkish-red.

author: AMR Labs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2023, 06:19:21 am
content: Fixed.Opened up and poked around the video connector where it connects to the LCD panel and saw the problem go away. Cleaned both ends of the video cable connectors and so far so good, display colors are now back to normal.As an additional note, noticed that the rubber (or soft plastic) around the edges of the LCD where it meets the back case are decaying and getting very sticking and brittle, so they pretty much started to break and fall off at some spots while gently prying off the back case. Yet another situation of a material used in a device not holding up very well to environment factors. Suspect heat is what got to it specially in summer where ambient daytime temperatures average 28-30 C.