I just successfully completed this repair in late 2025. Not sure if this is the thread to bump, but I have some notes for me in the past.

Sourcing a new LCD unit with cable:
I purchased a new LCD screen (because mine had multiple issues aside from missing pixels) with attached ribbon cable. AKSpeedo was my first choice (because no heat and could try a few times to line it up if needed) but they have been out of stock for ~6 months now and stopped responding to e-mails.
I ended up getting a unit off Amazon for ~$30 from a vendor called "BestParts" that looked like it could be decent. It ended up working fine in the end (but see the last note below).
Also, the first one I bought never shipped or arrived. Amazon canceled the order after ~30 days of the order being in limbo. I waited a couple months and ordered again, not even expecting it to arrive but this second one actually did.

Clean those contacts:
As others have mentioned, the contacts on the PCB side need to be cleaned very well, and what I did not realize is that this will take you over an hour with cotton swabs and acetone. The factory adhesive looked like solder to me so I just placed the ribbon cable over this on my first try. If you're not seeing golden contacts, you have an hour of cleaning ahead of you still. If you are using good pressure and acetone, and the swab comes back grey, you still have cleaning to do. You're not going to clean things with a few swipes of acetone. You're going to have a sizeable pile of dirty/grey cotton swabs when you're done.

Ribbon cable grounding issue:
Of course different ribbon cables will be different, but my specific (Chinese garbage) was particularly fun to deal with. It was difficult to figure out which side of the ribbon cable was conductive. My multmeter was no help. I had to use clues (the dull side looked bonded to the LCD, the ribbon cable needs to fold in such and such way to work) to decide the shiny side was likely not conductive, and the dull and slightly tacky side (when warm) was the conductive side.

Even then, it took me 3 trial runs to figure out the conductive side was grounding out on the case. A bench test would work well, but then fully assembled it would not work. That entire dull side of the ribbon cable was conductive and grounding out on the metal casing once fully assembled! The insanity. I insulated the entire exposed side of the cable with tape, and insulated the case with tape where it may make contact. This was paramount.


What an ordeal.

But I'm rocking full pixels now! :D

Great info, Excellent post! :)