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Can I replace original CCFL screen with LED backlit screen?

I have a MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 17-Inch (Santa Rosa) Mid/Late 2007, 2.4GHz - MA897LL/A - Model No: A1229 (EMC 2137). It was factory supplied with the 1920 x 1200 CCFL-backlit display.

My screen is flickering intermittently which I believe may be related to the inverter board, or the CCFL is past it's best. Is it possible to replace the inverter?

If not, can I replace the current CCFL 1920 x 1220 screen with the slightly newer LED backlit screen that was used in the Mid 2008 Macbook Pro A1261?

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Some of the A1261 MacBook Pro's had an LED back light.

I have changed ALL my A1229 and A1261 to LED.

You need to change the main video cable, inverter board, and the screen itself. Its not easy, I had to "extend" the power cable to the smaller inverter board, but LOVE my led screen. See no point in repairing and lcd screen.

You have to take the computer apart anyway, just upgrade everything to LED !!!

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@Leon Mccullough, could you go into a little more detail how you did this?

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@Leon Mccullough I also have an A1261 using CCFL LCD @ 1680 x 1050 and I'd like to get more details on how you made the upgrade to LED LCD @ 1920 x 1200; 11 hours later and this machine is still very usable by today's standard.

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My understanding is that the CCFL displays cannot be interchanged with LED displays. I imagine this is because of the backlight inverter and brightness control.

PowerBook Medic sells new displays for your model $199 but they get bad reviews as a business. The trick is that I believe you need to replace the whole display assembly and not just the LCD module or CCFL bulb.

Has anyone succeeded at replacing just the CCFL bulb themselves? That would only be $14 on eBay for the bulb.

Maybe, though I doubt it, you could take the backlight circuit from a Penryn MBP 17" (A1261) and put it where your inverter goes, then install an LED display from the Penryn MBP 17" (A1261). I haven't looked at the Apple service source manual, but my gut feeling is that the backlight circuits are not interchangeable/drop-in compatible between the santa rosa and penryn models. I would love to be proven wrong.

Let me know which route you take and how much it costs.

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Mike will be eternally grateful.
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