ibook screen gets VERY dark
My ibook (600Mhz, 12") screen occasionaly goes really dark.
It goes almost black, but I can vaguely see the shadows of application windows when I put a strong lamp behind the monitor (sort of like a projector)
I've been using the machine intensively for over 18 months, everything was fine until this black screen thing began to happen just after I installed panther two months ago.
It happens a few times a week, and I've figured out that the luminance comes back when I let the computer sleep for a moment by closing and reopening the lid.
I think the problem has something to do with the LCD backlight, but I have no idea what it may be.
Any clues as to whats wrong?software? hardware?
Anything I can do about it?
It goes almost black, but I can vaguely see the shadows of application windows when I put a strong lamp behind the monitor (sort of like a projector)
I've been using the machine intensively for over 18 months, everything was fine until this black screen thing began to happen just after I installed panther two months ago.
It happens a few times a week, and I've figured out that the luminance comes back when I let the computer sleep for a moment by closing and reopening the lid.
I think the problem has something to do with the LCD backlight, but I have no idea what it may be.
Any clues as to whats wrong?software? hardware?
Anything I can do about it?
Comments
You may have your energy saver settings telling the display to sleep after some inactivity. It could conceivably be a software bug or a firmware bug, but it is likely to be a hardware problem as if the backlight cable is getting pinched or the backlight is just running down. Since it's out of its service period you might be able to try opening the thing up (get a manual first!) and trying to fix the backlight cable yourself. But don't do anything rash until you know what the problem is and you think you are ready to fix it.
Maybe you could bring it to an Apple store and ask what they'd do to service it and how much it would cost. They'll probably say something like $800 which is more than the entire machine is worth, but maybe you can get an idea of what they'd do so you can attempt it yourself. They'd probably replace the backlight and cable, or perhaps the whole screen.