Top lid is dead, LCD, backlight and logo. Mac works fine.

Model A1398.

I bought this cheap not long ago. Worked fine, even the battery wasn't bad. But the anti-glare coating was pretty ugly, so I decided to use some online guides to rub it off.

It went pretty well, though it took me a few hours, and I had to use quite a bit of force. Towards the end of the process, I checked if it was still working, and it was. I rubbed some more, and the cleaned it off with a damp cloth.

Next, I power it on, and the screen is black. The apple logo on the lid is not lit. Flashlight thru the apple logo shows no sign of image on the LCD. If I plug it into an external screen via HDMI, everything works perfectly, even the back-lighting on the keyboard works.

So, it seems that the lid with the display is simply not getting powered. I had it lying down on a towel with the screen up when I did the rubbing, and I'm pretty shure that I didn't get any moisture into the motherboard or ports etc.

I might have gotten moisture into the LCD via the edges, and I've tried to help with evaporation for a few days with no luck. It might also be not moisture at all, but my heavy handling of the mac thru the process.

I've never opened a mac laptop before, and from the guides that I find online, I don't think it's worth it to try, at least as long as I don't really know what I'm looking for.

I opened two faulty 27" 2010 imacs a couple of years ago, and managed to merge the working parts into one functional imac. In that process I fixed one of the screens by reconnecting a lead that ran along the edge under the LCD. But I don't feel that I'm in a position to take on this.

I've read that there is a 'fuse' of some kind on the motherboard. Could it be as simple as changing a fuse?

I do have a small shop across town that might be able to at least diagnose the problem, but they would charge me half of what I paid for it, just to have a look.

Any advice?

Thank you.