M17x R3 screen issue

Hello, new to the forums so excuse me if my post is not adhering to local etiquette.

My M17x R3 of 2.5 years has been functioning well, apart from graphics cards and hard drives being replaced. But recently whenever I boot it up and log in, the laptop screen goes completely black randomly. Sometimes it is due to certain angles and sometimes due to slight nudging. Other times it's just random. I have tried an external monitor as well as on my t.v. and they both work perfectly fine. I am thinking its the lcd cable that's the issue, but its mostly from guesswork and my own research. I am not familiar with inverters and if that is a different component. Any and all help on this matter is highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

My specs:

Alienware M17x R3
16 GB DDR3 Ram
Nvidia 580M 2 GB graphics card
I7-2860QM 2.5 Ghz processor
3D Display

 

Modern LED LCD's don't have an inverter, those were the old days of CCFL panels. Try reseating your monitor. The biggest issue is Alienware LCD panels are generally glued together with the front glass and the back piece. They are NOT fun to take apart.

 

Have you got a phone or an ipad near it? I find with mine if I run my phone or ipad over the keyboard the screen goes off they interfere with something inside.

 

@Tsunade, yeah I heard of the difficulty with alienware lcd panels. Thats why i am a bit reluctant to take that apart before being sure of whats wrong but I will jot that down as a to-do. Thank you!

@simon No, nothing of the sort. But just in case i used it in an area without other devices and the black outs still happened.

 

I would recommend the same as Tsunade_Hime. Try to reseat the LCD cable.

 

Sounds like a cable problem. I recommend you also use the opportunity to clean out the LVDS

 

Well, if the you can get the screen display corrupted image or go black by moving it forward and backwards - it is most likely LCD cable problem. Little wires inside LCD cable are wearing out at the bottom of the screen as this part is constantly moving when you open and close the display. After certain time cable becomes unusable and can display corrupted/black picture etc when moving or after longer period even constantly.

If you can get the screen to go black by just lightly (please be very very gentle here) twisting top corners of the screen to any side - it is most likely LED problem.
Sometimes LCD cable can become loose at the screen or mainboard side (screen side in most cases) and re-seating and putting some tape to keep it in place can help. But it most cases new LCD cable or screen is required...

On the side note, as Tsunade_Hime already mentioned, LED screens (technically LCD screens with LED backlight), which are fitted to pretty much all the laptops these days, are not using inverters. If on old CCFL screen you would have a faulty inverter, screen would have no backlight, but the picture would still be visible if you bring the screen near any light source. And in most cases if you loose the picture with the screen moving even with old screens it would most likely be LCD cable/LCD problem, but not the inverter. If the inverter would be faulty, most likely backlight would go off after some time rather than with the movement of the display.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for all the replies guys! I will definitely give re-seating the cable a go. Will post with results as soon as I can.

 

Any updates on that screen brother?