Magnets v/s Satellite = Toasted Screen?!?

Hi folks... newbie to the forum, but I've got a techie questions. My daugher has a Satellite A135-S4527 which was bought new only 5 months ago. Last night she was sitting on the couch with the laptop, playing around with a couple small, but powerful magnets (The kind that will hold onto one another through your hand). Anyway, she dropped the magnets on the laptop, hitting just above the keypad and just in front of the screen. She's quick... like a cat .... a big, brain dead cat... and she grabbed them very quickly. However, the screen went black as soon as the mags hit.

At first we thought the computer was dead. Restarts just got a black screen. But then this morning, with the sun hitting the screen, my wife realized the computer was on... you just could barely see the screen ... like the backlight was not working.

This evening I hooked the laptop up to my desktop monitor, and the computer seems to be working just fine, except for the screen. Everything was bright a normal on my desktop monitor. Along the way, I tried a system restore to no avail. OH... one more clue... when my wife first noticed it was on, the could see (Barely) that a warning was on the screen indicating that some of the Windows files had become corrupt or were missing and asking if it should repair them. She said yes, repair them and the computer restarted without further hangup, other than the dim screen.....

So... how bad is it to drop magnets on your laptop keyboard? What damage did she likely do? Should it have caused that much damage? Can I fix it? Of course, we did not buy the extended warranty... so I'm assuming a few hundred at least if we send it in...... Any help / advice / info would be greatly appreciated!

--Mike

 

Toshiba is usually pretty good about honoring their warrenty, which in most causes is a whole year. You should be okay. I know that magnets will mess with a CRT screen, but I'm not sure about a LCD. However, I am going to rule it a possibilty that a light could have been knocked out. Anyways, I would recommend contracting Toshiba, or if you have a Compusa in your city, to take it there. They provided serveral services on all type of computers, even if they weren't purchased there, and will most likely send it to Toshiba, free of charge.

 

Thanks for the response! Do you think we should tell them she dropped a magnet on the case, or keep that little nugget of honesty to ourselves?

 

they should not have damaged the lcd itself. but by puting them that close to other components they could have caused issues with a part of the motherboard. but i highly doubt they had anything to do with the lcd if in fact it is defective. which i personally do not think is your problem... what they imo prob damaged was the inverter...

 

No problem. I think that is up to you. Most likely it is a factor defect. Acutally, for more information on Magnets and LCD look here. It has a pretty good explaination of what the effects will be, and it sounds like the problem you are describing.

 

If you ask me, I'd never allow these tech killers to enter my house ever.
These magnet "toys" are simply too dangerous to have around modern electronics. For some sensitive equipment you dont even need to bring them too nearby to shorten the livespan (even if it will not die instantly).