problem with flickering sony vaio LCD screen

Hello,

I live in europe and I own a vaio VGN-A317M (american equivalent VGN-A270 I think) since 8/2005 Recently it has presented the following problem with the lcd screen (17' WXGA dual lamp) which has become quite a mystery the more I read about it.

For the first time, 2 weeks ago, the screen sometimes flickered very quickly (around 4-5Hz) before the backlight went off but after restarting the pc, and opening – closing the lid, it went on again. For a week it didn’t bother me again.

A few days ago, it happened again, but this time the backlight would return more and more difficultly. The colors remained normal when the screen was on. Another symptom was that the right low corner of the lcd screen became extremely hot at the very corner and a few pixels (even more peripherally than the time indication at the taskbar) became white probably because of the overheating after a few minutes of turning the pc on. Right now when I start the windows, there is at the beginning a dim backlight flickering very quickly and always goes off after a few seconds the appearence of the desktop. In the dark screen I can always see the desktop icons properly so the rest of the computer is working.

Today I removed the plastic frame of the screen and found the lcd inverter (dual inverter type). When I switched the inverter exit cables (2 pairs) the screen worked normally but still the right corner was heating up. This made me think that the half part of the inverter is damaged by another cause, probably a faulty lamp, but I still can’t figure out the reason. The screen also made a subtle electric buzz when I put my ear a few mm near the right corner and when I touched its metallic frame it was vibrating in a non visible way but that I could only feel with my fingertips. The end of the little cables that exit the inverter and enter the right corner of the screen were also heated up in the past judging from the change of their appearance. I switched back the inverter cables, closed the laptop and didn’t use it since then from the fear of causing more damage.

Any opinion on that would be priceless: It is important if this is a problem that can be repaired in a relatively economical way or should I need to buy a new computer since this a tool of my work... Because in case the problem is the inverter I can chance it myself and if it is a lamp, I can have it fixed at a local computer service store. On the other hand the sony service is tricky and they have a centralized service system located in belgium for the whole europe. I wish I could avoid getting into that... What would you suggest to do and what would you think could be the problem? Maybe a fautly lamp that needs more and more power from the inverter resulting to its failure, or it could be something even from the motherboard?

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Regards
Vassilis