Intermittent backlight (M1330)

I have a M1330 (LED screen) and the backlight comes on and off as you adjust the hinge to different positions... any idea if this is more likely a cable fracture (as I fear) or just a loose connection?

(Unfortunately 2 months out of warranty... it was an outlet refurb unit and I figured as it didn't have the NVIDIA graphics and had a SSD it wasn't worth getting extended coverage)

 

I am on an M1330 which I bought in 2007 of September. Not sure if we have the same problem but my screen is messed up as well. Sometimes if I move my screen it will dim so much that I cannot see the screen well. Or it goes Completely black OR it turns white. I have to pull the right side of the screen and push the left side for it to stay on.

What I am trying to get at is that your m1330 may turn out like mine and it sucks. I am finally upgrading to L501X. I've had this thing for so long...my battery is completely dead, if I unplug it for a second it turns off.

 

Was your laptop slammed in anyway? See if you can reseat the LCD cable. Worst comes to worst, I have seen flickering screen caused by a bad motherboard.

 

I've had the motherboard replaced when I had it under warranty. I don't remember why I called them because it was two years ago. Also the DVD drive hasnt been working but it doesnt bother me because I'll be getting another laptop soon.

I've had my laptop fall off from my bed onto my rug so it's probably from me not taking care of my laptop. =P

 

Well it might just be a pinched cable.

As for the ODD, if you have Vista/7 try the upper/lower filters fix or run the Microsoft tool.

 

I am guessing in both mine and Alzack's cases it is a frayed/shorted/broken cable somewhere in the hinge and I think it shouldn't be too difficult to fix.

[Also had some trouble with the DVD drive on our other M1330... when I try and read CD-Rs the device often stops working properly and I have to rediscover it in the hardware manager. That at least gets DVD playback back... the Microsoft FixIt tool certainly looks like an easy way to diagnose that further - need to check if it is all CD-Rs, and whether DVDs write ok still.]

 

It may be easy for most but I I'm not too good with computers to take them apart. I just tried to do the fixIt tool and it ended up not being able to fix it. It sucks but no big. Hopefully Nalada yours goes well.

 

FWIW I seem to have fixed it.
First the symptoms were getting worse with the screen not only going dark as the hing was moved but also getting speckliy patterns and other graphics glitches. There also seemed to be some sensitivity when pressing moderately on the left hand side of the display panel.

I thought it would be cable damage in the hinge but in the end it seems to have been a bad connection where the display cable goes into the display panel (behind the "Dell" logo on the bezel). This looks like a fairly regular connector but is held in by some clear plastic tape glued down - so I didn't actually break and remake the connection but I pulled it apart a bit (as much as plastic stretch would allow) and then pushed it back in.

(There were also a couple of places where there were pinched cables - one of the cables at the right hinge was slightly pinched, and the display panel cable was pinched behind the bezel (half way between the Dell logo and the left-hand side. But these did not seem to be serious problems)