Screen issue

Hey guys...
I require some help in regards to my laptop screen.
Its an Acer 5930G (the one in my signature).
5 years and 10 and a half months old.

I have a problem with the screen.
Namely, when I turn on the laptop, the screen functions for a few seconds and then it shuts itself off.
Opening and closing the lid makes it work again.
It takes multiple openings and closing of the lid until the backlight is working without a hitch (as long as the screen doesn't turn itself off as a power saving measure... in which case, I have to repeat the process again).

I really don't know where to narrow down the issue.
The video cable?
The Inverter?
Or the Backlight?
The Panel itself seems to be an unlikely candidate seeing how it does give off a picture when the backlight goes off.

I tried opening the laptop screen to reach the inverter, etc. and all of the connections there seem to be in place.
I even tried wiggling a bit with them while the laptop was on and the screen off, but it did nothing to prompt the backlight to activate... only opening and closing the lid did that.

Any thoughts and ideas?

 

sounds like the ribbon cable to the screen.
they normally run up one of the hinges and opening and shutting for almost 6 years could of taken its toll.

 

Yup its the screen cable.. probably needs to be replaced and it might be a good incentive to get a new laptop after so much time

 

I was suspicious of the Video cable before because it was giving me issues with the screen becoming white at random 6 months after I got the laptop (the condition stabilized since then though)... the thick one that runs on the left side of the laptop through one of the hinges.
At any rate... I think there's a good chance it might be the culprit.

Its not expensive to get a new one from ebay, so I think I will do that and see what kind of effect it may have.

As for getting a new laptop... I was contemplating of getting a new one indeed.. but I might wait a while until high end gpu's with new architectures are released... in which case it might also be prudent to wait for Broadwell release, but seeing how performance wise it wouldn't be that much different from Haswell... the only viable reason I might wait for Broadwell would be for fixed thermals... seeing how some people were seemingly experiencing issues with Haswell on that front (or am I mistaken?).

 

Fair enough.. I wouldn't wait for Broadwell as Broadwell mobile processors seem to be all BGA (soldered to motherboard).. Haswell is your best bet and once Maxwell is out, there is really no reason to wait anymore

 

I was actually thinking on waiting for AMD new GPU's instead of Maxwell because AMD is usually far superior to Nvidia in OpenCL - plus I kinda like the concept of Mantle, etc.

Broadwell being BGA doesn't concern me to be honest... I was wondering more along the lines if it has fixed thermals... and whether Haswell has some thermal issues that one should be wary of?

 

Good luck with AMD... Their desktop GPU's will be fine against Maxwell but their laptop ones are going to look like utter jokes.. The 980M will 80% faster than the 7970M and it looks like nothing AMD has can be cut down and put in a laptop and match Maxwell..

 

Hey guys.
I have an update on the screen.
I think I managed to isolate the problem down to the backlight.
The lower left corner of the screen developed a black spot due to hotness which slowly started to appear/increase in that area 2 days ago.
.
I ordered a replacement screen for my Acer 5930G... with a Matte screen... this one to be precise:
NEW ACER 5930G 15.4" LCD SCREEN WXGA Matte Grade A | eBay

I also ordered a replacement video cable just in case.

After getting both, I replaced them just recently.
I tried turning on the laptop... and while everything booted,the image on the screen was garbled.
In order to rule out the new video cable being the issue... I used the old video cable, and the problem persisted.

Now... there's one more thing I hadn't mentioned.
When my father and I replaced the panel in the laptop 9 months ago (because the original backlight went out), we used a different laptop's panel which had identical specifications... same video cable 30 pin connector, same WXGA resolution, it was also Glossy as... however, it had a different inverter.
As a result, I connected the new screen and video cable to this different inverter (because I left the old one in Croatia - living in Edinburgh now, and didn't expect the backlight to go out so soon).

Is it possible the underlying problem is due to the inverter being incompatible?
Here's the picture of the issue:



Btw... I did order the Acer 5930G replacement inverter (Which has yet to arrive, which is why I used the altered one).

The new screen is a Matte screen, but its for Acer 5930G (which is my laptopp - I made sure it was)... but I doubt a different coating on the screen itself could produce these problems.

The issue 'seems' like a video cable... but I doubt both the old and the new one would produce these issues.
So, the only thing that's out of sync, is that the inverter is the wrong on (I think we used an old HP laptop's panel and inverter).

EDIT: After doing some online searching... some websites seem to connect these issues to a faulty screen itself.
Is it possible this is the case?
Here's tge source in question which suggests the screen itself as being faulty:
http://ultrahitech.wordpress.com/2012/02/page/2/
As evidenced... the back-light DOES turn on on the existing inverter... but the video display is utterly garbled.

EDIT 2: External display (HDMI) works fine (just tested it).

I'll have to wait for the inverter to come in so I can test the screen with that... but if the problem persists, then its likely down to the screen itself