Problem w/ 300D screen backlight

StinkyCheeseMan

My Canon 300D started acting odd. When I turn it on the screen backlight comes on and stays on all the time. To make matters worse it appears that one light at the bottom of the screen isn't working. Preview is off so I know that is not the problem. I have swapped the CF card and the battery. It does it with or without a lens. I've reset factory default settings. I've removed the memory battery and re-inserted it. The problem is not going away.

Any ideas on what may have caused this? Any suggestions how to make it go away?

I was planning on selling it this spring but now I would get less for it. I would hate to have to run to Mack again. (I just shelled out $170 to get my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS serviced, the nice thing is that Mack is 20 minutes from my home.)

This would not be a problem if I was shooting outside in the sunlight all the time but on Friday I was shooting inside an abandoned church that was boarded up. And having that light there was really annoying.

ziggy53

If you removed the backup battery, and if the battery was out long enough for all the power to drain, causing a complete default/reset, then it sounds like a problem that requires attention to one of the logic boards. If that's the case, then it requires service, which may be pretty expensive. There may not be an easy, or inexpensive, fix.

ziggy53

StinkyCheeseMan

ziggy53 wrote:

There may not be an easy, or inexpensive, fix.
ziggy53

Thanks Ziggy. I solved the problem. It was cheap and easy. In fact it was free and the hardest part was remembering where the screws went back.

It turned out that there was a short. After removing the rear cover I found two small wires at the bottom of the screen; one red, one black. The black one had been pinched under the plate that supports the screen and the insulation had been cut through. I assume that these are the wire for the backlight. I pushed the wires out of the way and, voila! end of problem.

I found a site that shows what I'm talking about.

http://www.abo.fi/~jskata/300Drepair/

In the fourth picture one can see a white connecter at the bottom. You might be able to make out the wires coming from it. My wire was pinched just to the left of the connector.

Eric&Susan

I like the sony screen:





Eric

StinkyCheeseMan

Eric&Susan wrote:

I like the sony screen:

Eric

Made me giggle when I opened it up. I wonder if it's a Wega.