W530 backlight fuse location -- front or back of board?

[BruceDickinson]

I've got no backlight on a W530 ebay purchase that was sold for parts. I'll swap the video cable, but it seems like a blown fuse is the likely culprit.

I understand the blown fuse will be near the LCD connector, but does anyone know which side of the board that fuse is on? I intend to piggyback-solder a replacement fuse and it sure would be nice not to have to disassemble to get to the back of the board. I'd also rather not peel back the thin plastic covering by the connector on the front just to check. Based on reports regarding similar models, I'm guessing it's on the back. Thanks very much.

[jal2]

The backlight fuse is called F7 (3A, 0402) and is located at the bottom of the board, see this picture.

[BruceDickinson]

Thanks very much, jal2. That was great. Your post and the photo totally answered my question.

[BruceDickinson]

An update in case someone else out there is thinking of trying the same fix for a W530 whose backlight isn't working...
Yes, the F7 fuse was blown. Tried to piggypack solder a new fuse on top of the old fuse (0603 32V/3A) and it was pretty difficult, even with a skinny soldering iron tip, decent Hakko tweezers and a magnifying visor thing. I don't have a ton of experience soldering, but I did practice a bit on a dead board. Just wanted to let other neophytes know it wasn't a walk in the park. Flux was very helpful. I also found it easiest to apply solder on top of the posts of the old fuse before mounting and soldering the new fuse on top.

Also, it didn't work. I tried it 3x (all the replacement fuses I had) and the new fuse blew each time I booted. So I guess mine was a case of there being something wrong elsewhere to cause the F7 fuse to blow. I know the LCD itself is fine. The rest of the W530 works fine. I haven't seen other advice for this situation, so I'll have to think about getting a replacement motherboard.

Anyway, the main point here is that I was naively confident about the likelihood of success overall and about being able to manage the soldering without a lot of consternation. Just a heads-up in case others are considering the same.

[ac427]

Did you ever find the cause of the fuse blowing?

Perhaps the backlight circuit is shorting to ground somewhere?

[BruceDickinson]

I didn't investigate further. Really didn't know how to.

I sold the board on ebay (with full explanation)--so my innner conservationist is hopeful it has been repaired.

The W530 itself is now working great with a replacement motherboard (from ebay), which upgraded the graphics from K1000M to K2000M.

[jursky]

The W530 itself is now working great with a replacement motherboard (from ebay), which upgraded the graphics from K1000M to K2000M.

An offtopic question: what about the performance gain in games? (if you play games, that is)
I was thinking about replacing my k1000m board with k2000m myself, but I think that I read somewhere that cooling framework is slightly different and that the change would NOT be a simple swap. Am I right and therefore rather stay with what I have now not damaging anything or can I simply order a k2000m board from ebay and swap it without worries?

[BruceDickinson]

I'm afraid I can't really answer your questions about gaming. I have to limit myself to the simplest of games because my self-discipline isn't awesome.

As to the heatsink, I'm ashamed to say I didn't even consider there might be a difference. Anyway, the one from the K1000m fits perfectly well on the K2000m and it seems to be doing a good job. Temps are low, but I never really stress the CPU or GPU.

I just compared photos of the two heatsink models (04W3626 and 04W3627) and I couldn't tell a difference, so I'm just going to assume I'm good to go. Heck, I don't even know which one I have.