Backlight issue on 901C

My notebook is a 4 year old Pro-Star branded 901C (specs in signature), and my backlight is acting up on me. It will cut out even though the screen and rest of the computer work fine. You can still make out the LCD from shining a light in it. At first it would flash at random but not often, then go out a few seconds at a time, then go dead. This could all happen in a day or take a week to really get bad. I put it away for a while until I could look in to it, and after a month or so I tried it again and it worked fine for several hours until it started acting up again.

I did some searching on here for similar issues and I was able to check my cables and all seems firmly connected and the light didn't seem to react when moving them around, so I'm thinking I've ruled out a kink or bad connection. I was thinking maybe the light itself, but I saw some other possible issues that could cause it in the other threads I read. For me to just have it checked out by the only local computer shop I know of is $50 diagnostic.

I don't mind digging in some inside my case for minor stuff, but I'm not a tech and I know nothing good would happen if I went any further. I was hoping maybe I could find clues as to the issue here, but now I'm thinking maybe I should be asking how much I could be expecting to pay for a repair? I know it's hard to do on this info, but I'm only looking for a general idea or maybe worse case scenario type situation.

And along those same lines, anyone know much about repair places? My only option is to take it to a store, who contracts a guy out of his house to do their laptop work. The store is reputable, but the "guy out of his house" is giving me a bit of pause. My account on the OS is PW protected, but I know some people can still hack a system given the time. Do customers generally have to worry about some curious repairman hacking in to see what's on there? I have my stuff backed up, but I wonder if I should delete my private stuff off there before taking in.

 

Sorry I can not help, but a suggestion reagarding your data. It is very easy to hack into the OS even if it is password protected. The only way it would be safe if the hdd would be encrypted. The safest way is to remove th ehd when you take it to repair.

 

The thing is when something goes wrong with your LCD screen a number of different problems can give the same symptoms, making it hard to diagnose the actual problem.

From what you described it could be the backlight or the LCD inverter. I've had a bad, and, a loose video cable, both of which have very different effects. However, neither has caused a dim or screen blackout. So I think you're right, it probably isn't that unless the cable plug (motherboard or LCD connection end) came out completely, which is also impossible due to the layout. Also would result in a dead screen.

It would be cheaper to replace the backlight, inverter, or the whole LCD screen yourself. There are plenty of compatible LCDs (WUGA and WXGA+, with backlights), and a few backlights and inverters for the D901c on Ebay, fairly reasonably priced.

I've replaced my LCD due to LCD failure. It really wasn't half as difficult as I thought it would be. It helped that there were loads of videos showing the process.

Check out this link (one of many sites) and the associated articles there:

Laptop Repair Help Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem.

The main problem would be finding a way to diagnose which component is bad.

 

Thanks for the link TW, I'm gonna look into the inverter possibility.

Something else I noticed when I was looking at my system is that the backlight (when it was functioning) would not shut off when I closed the lid. I seem to remember it used to, so I got to wondering if maybe the switch was the problem. I looked all around but couldn't find a backlight switch. Any idea where it is? Or am I remembering things wrong and the backlight doesn't have one?

And if worse comes to worse, I didn't even think about removing the HDD. Thanks for that one, pasoleatis.

 

Hi Mooncatt. I believe the lid switch is usually a magnetic/electrical one which turns the inverter on/off, which in turn controls the backlight.

Before investigating that though I would check that your OS power scheme (display/properties/power/power options/advanced -- this is the set up in Win XP) hasn't changed to something like "do nothing when lid is closed".

If you were using the lid to "shut down", "put to sleep", or "hibernate" your laptop, but the backlight was staying on, then possibly that could have shortened the life of one of the components over a prolonged time.

 

Yeah, I was planning to check that power scheme option the next chance I had to look at it. All it should be doing is shutting off the light and not sleeping, shutting down, etc.

 

Just jumping back in for a quick update.

Techno, I eventually did order another inverter. It was used, but supposed to have a 1 month warranty on it and when I put it in today, nothing changed. So I'm thinking that wasn't the issue. Thanks for the help regardless and I think I'm just going to have it diagnosed when I save up the money to do so. Got other things I'm saving for right now, one of which is an event I was supposed to be using this laptop at. Gotta love irony.