Compaq Presario v2570nr screen goes black

A friend of mine has a Compaq Presario v2570nr laptop, he's had it about a year and a half and now all of a sudden the screen started going black, It's gotten worse now and he has to use a separate VGA monitor to use it.

It seems to be a problem with the button that turns off the LCD when the screen is normally closed - only problem is, it's not closed but turns off anyway. This happens anywhere, BIOS menu, the second you turn it on, or in windows itself so I've ruled out it being a software problem. It's like the button that normally turns off the screen has a short in it.

When the screen is black you can press the button and the screen will turn on normally for a second, occasionally longer, up to a minute or more, even an hour or more a few times but always starts doing it again. When the screen is black if you look at an angle carefully you can still see that the screen is displaying stuff, it's just that it's so dark you'd think it was off if you weren't carefully looking in the right way.

Anyone have any suggestions? Is there any way to turn off this button on the laptop that turns off the screen when the lid is closed? I've tried all the options in windows power management and it doesn't do anything, but I don't believe this was ever a software issue to begin with. Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thanks.