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Laptop woes
Jul. 12th, 2010 05:35 am(With luck, I've properly set this up to post on Dreamwidth and cross-post to Livejournal. We'll find out.)
So my laptop has this Serious Problem: the backlight on the monitor doesn't work. Based on my internet research, the problem could be one of four (I think) places: the graphics card, the bulb, the inverter, or the lid switch.
I don't believe the problem is in the graphics card, because everything that should be on the screen is there, it's just not lit. I can see it if there's enough contrast, plus some external light shining on it, plus...anyway, it's dim, but it's displaying.
I don't believe the problem is the bulb, because when switching to the laptop monitor in various ways (right at startup; pressing the button to swap from external display to laptop display; occasionally when opening the lid), the light does flicker on briefly. In fact, sometimes it'll stay lit for a few seconds before going dim again, and last night it actually stayed lit for hours (and I assume it would still be, except that after I went to bed, my cat closed the lid).
I don't believe the problem to be the inverter, because I bought a new inverter and replaced the old one, and nada.
And I don't believe the problem is that the lid switch isn't responding, because when I close the lid, the external monitor flashes for a moment--goes black, and then lights up again. Same thing when I open it again: black flicker, and then back to normal display. So there's some indication that the computer is changing state when the lid closes and opens, i.e. can still detect when the lid closes and opens.
I don't know what that leaves. Presumably I'm misunderstanding something; maybe the bulb can be faulty even when it's not outright burnt out. But please, if anyone out there (a) understands hardware or (b) has better luck Googling for this sort of thing than I do, then don't hesitate to clue me in as to what's going on here. Heck, I'll even go for (c), i.e. a reliable laptop repair place in the Boston area, especially one that won't follow up the sentence "Your laptop is unfixable [or unfixable for less than the price of a new laptop]" with a sentence like "That'll be $100, please."
So my laptop has this Serious Problem: the backlight on the monitor doesn't work. Based on my internet research, the problem could be one of four (I think) places: the graphics card, the bulb, the inverter, or the lid switch.
I don't believe the problem is in the graphics card, because everything that should be on the screen is there, it's just not lit. I can see it if there's enough contrast, plus some external light shining on it, plus...anyway, it's dim, but it's displaying.
I don't believe the problem is the bulb, because when switching to the laptop monitor in various ways (right at startup; pressing the button to swap from external display to laptop display; occasionally when opening the lid), the light does flicker on briefly. In fact, sometimes it'll stay lit for a few seconds before going dim again, and last night it actually stayed lit for hours (and I assume it would still be, except that after I went to bed, my cat closed the lid).
I don't believe the problem to be the inverter, because I bought a new inverter and replaced the old one, and nada.
And I don't believe the problem is that the lid switch isn't responding, because when I close the lid, the external monitor flashes for a moment--goes black, and then lights up again. Same thing when I open it again: black flicker, and then back to normal display. So there's some indication that the computer is changing state when the lid closes and opens, i.e. can still detect when the lid closes and opens.
I don't know what that leaves. Presumably I'm misunderstanding something; maybe the bulb can be faulty even when it's not outright burnt out. But please, if anyone out there (a) understands hardware or (b) has better luck Googling for this sort of thing than I do, then don't hesitate to clue me in as to what's going on here. Heck, I'll even go for (c), i.e. a reliable laptop repair place in the Boston area, especially one that won't follow up the sentence "Your laptop is unfixable [or unfixable for less than the price of a new laptop]" with a sentence like "That'll be $100, please."