Chosen Solution
My Apple 20" Cinema display (A1081) has become dimmer over the last couple of months. Brightness is turned all the way up and the whites are still grayish. Is it possible to replace the backlight in this otherwise functional display?
Its a bit of work and you do need to be careful as the CFL lamps are fragile. It’s been awhile since I’ve replaced the CFL’s so I don’t know what lamps are available any more. Given the age of your display you might want to consider getting a new one as the cost of repair will be more than a new unit will cost (if you were to get it fixed by someone).
dkelly, I would not give up that early :-). I am certain that it can be done, CCFL’s are not very expensive or even hard to come by. Check on here for some ideas. May be we can help you changing the CCFL’s and making a guide for it:-)
I replaced the CCFLs in my display. I don’t recall which I ordered from but Plazmo.com and CCFLwarehouse.com have the CCFLs to replace the ones in your monitor. After the replacement my monitor was slightly brighter but it illuminated another problem, which is that the display is turning pink as it ages. Next thing I might try is replacing the entire LCD panel with an LED version, just to keep the nice bezel and aesthetic of the cinema display, but that’s a project for another day.
