[NTLK] MessagePad 120 display flickering / contrast issue

[Brad Tober]

Hi all,

I have a MessagePad 120 that I recently repaired by using some parts from a donor device (namely, the power switch). Now that it's "working," it's clear that there's also some other issue at play. The display contrast varies every few seconds or so, ranging from being visible to extremely faint. Sometimes, the entire screen will even flash completely black, but this might be dependent on the setting of the contrast dial. Here's a video of the issue: https://youtu.be/zx6K9uIxVxM (this doesn't show the black flash I mentioned). Does anyone have any ideas? I haven't been able to find any information about similar issues. I quickly swapped in another display that I believe to be working fine and the same problem was exhibited, so maybe the problem isn't actually the display itself?

On a related note, the part displayed in this image: https://imgur.com/a/kN82EWu came loose during disassembly — does anyone know where this should go in the device? I haven't seen it mentioned in any disassembly walk-throughs, nor does it seem to be visible in any related images (although most disassembly images I've found are fairly low resolution).

Thanks!
Brad