Very weird problem in my Studio 1535 **Pls Help**

My 2 year old Studio 1535 has recently developed a very odd problem. While running suddenly the screen will go blank...actually its not 100% dead but somewhat like at 1-5% brightness. I can still make out the screen text at some angles but its hardly usable. I will shut it down and start after some time - it will boot up with normal screen brightness and the moment the logon screen come, it will again go to 1% brightnesss....if I leave it like that for some hrs and come and touch the screen again - it will show the log on screen for few seconds and then again go to 1% bright screen. As a result of this the laptop is hardly used and sometimes after many days when we turn it on, it behaves well for 1-2 days and then back to same issue again. Sometimes even the boot up is with 1% lit screen, sometimes not - totally random.

I have tried to reinstall the display driver (during its "happy" hrs). I have tried Fn+Brightness (i can see the brightness bar going up while the sceen is 1% lit and to my dismay it has no impact on actual brightness)

Its driving me nuts....any body seen anything like this? In today's world getting this to Dell service will perhaps cost as much as half a laptop and moreever it might even boot normally at service station, :-(

 

Your backlight or inverter is dying.

Hard to say which one for sure... I usually say backlight simply because I've seen so many more backlight failures than inverter failures. If such is the case, you can replace the part individually (a pain) or replace the display entirely (expensive).

You can, of course, try buying a new inverter first (cheap and easy to install!), installing it, and seeing if it solves your problem, in which case you had an inverter failure and saved yourself a ton of trouble (or money).

All of these parts are widely available on eBay, and Dell provides a service manual detailing the deconstruction of your machine.

EDIT: There's also a chance you could have a break in some display cable. You could try re-seating/replacing that too. It's another cheap and easily installed part.

 

Hey thanks a lot Wolf...I googled around and it seems a very common problem. How sad to see modern electronics quality being so pathetic....it seems not so long ago when CRT TV's, all cassette players would last for years together and now with all the modern production methods Dell can't seem to make a display that can last for even 2 years....:-(
I am in Singapore and so ebay US is out of bounds...this sucks

Edit: and oh yes - the battery of this laptop died 6 months ago, long before it completed two years, the keyboard back light too died even before that....this is incredibly bad quality control.

.....btw, is the keyboard backlight failure somehow related to what's wrong now? (I mean is the same dying inverter responsible for driving both?)

 

Almost certainly not. The keyboard backlight and display backlight are two fairly discrete subsystems.