After screen replacement, top half of screen starts by looking normal but then fades to black while bottom half stays bright but with images blury. What might went wrong?

Question

A friend recently gave me their old Macbook pro 15 because they broke the screen and the Apple store quoted them $500-600 to fix it. I looked online and bought a screen of ebay for $170 in hopes of fixing it myself. After getting the screen I hooked it up using the steps I found online. Sadly when I turned it on, the top half of the screen was working apparently normally, but then it faded to black. The bottom half stayed bright with color the whole time but the images were always blurred. When I close the screen with it on, then open it after turning the computer on, the top half lights up with my desktop images as if it is working fine but then fades to black. The bottom is still blurred the whole time. What all could be wrong? Display cable, Inverter cable, not registering the screen or something, the screen is bad? I don't now a ton about all this and I have learned most of what I know from online research. I am not sure if I should send the screen back or if there is another issue. I just want to fix this thing.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, you don't even know the lower half of the computer is working properly, because you didn't have it until after it had been abused. So forget the attached screen for the moment. Connect an external monitor to it, fire it up, and see whether you can get a usable image on the external screen. If you can, send the defective "new" screen back for a refund, or replace the LVDS video cable first to make sure that's not where the problem lies, and if it isn't, then resort to sending the screen back. If you can't get a good image on the external, give the junk machine back to your friend and walk away.