Acer 1710 Screen Went Dim

I have an Acer 1710 which I have been using for as long as 14 hours per day for a little over two years. A few days ago the screen suddenly went very dim - to the point where it was illegible.

I should mention that for the past few months I have had an external flat screen monitor, an Acer AL1916W, plugged in though for the most part it is not used. It could be that my imagination was working overtime but I think there was a crackling sound just about the time the screen went dim. I installed IE7 recently after which, for the first time, I got the option of driving the two monitors separately at independant resolutions. I tried to do that and since then have not been able to use the external monitor at all.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is it something that can be fixed quite easily.

 

The backlight for the LCD may be broken. It is difficult to say without more details. Can the brightness of the screen be changed using the Fn keys. If they can, then it is probably something to do with software that is causing the dimming. If not, then it could be either software or the actual backlight not functioning.

 

Which function keys does one use to screen brightness?

 

The Fn keys are different for each notebook. On mine it is Fn + F7 to turn it down, and Fn + F8 to turn it up. You should be able to see which one it is by looking at the FX set of keys, and see which has a symbol for brightness. There should be two: one for up and one for down.

 

Hmm... . Looks like I might have to first get hold of the instruction manual to figure out just which keys to use for screen brightness control. I switched on the computer briefly - I can't help but notice that apart from the flicker there is a wheezing sound coming from it that sounds quite unhealthy. This has never been a silent machine but the wheeze is something new.

 

Is the wheezing noise coming from the screen or somewhere else from the notebook. It may be coming from the fan, inwhice the notebook may get quite warm.