Halp, Dead Laptop

[Kaelan?]

So yeah, yesterday night I was just using my laptop like I normally do and at one point the screen just suddenly went black. I thought it was power saving mode or something at first (which made me feel stupid later on when I remembered I always leave it off on this laptop so it couldn't possibly be that), but it wasn't.

I was watching something on youtube and the sound was still going and I've been able to reboot it so the only thing that looks damaged is the monitor. I thought something might have completely burned out at first, but I've been able to get it to work again a few times by leaving it off for a while and rebooting. It always only stays on for a few minutes though, then goes dark again. No clue what the hell is wrong with it; I've only had this laptop for a little over a year too, and it's the only computer I have available at home atm, so this really sucks.

Anyone have an idea what it might be?

[Gredival]

What Laptop company/manufacturer is your laptop from? I have had similar problems with mine. It sounds like the connection between your monitor and motherboard is loose, causing the backlight to go off. If you look really closely with correct light can you still see faint shapes and such on the monitor?

If you can, then it means LCD is just not getting illuminated; that's why sometimes it starts working again. But then the wiring fails and the light cuts off and it goes black.

[Tormentormike]

Everyone in tech always has problems that I'm having too! My monitor just had the same problem with what I'm assuming is also the back light dying (things appear faintly still) and from what I've looked at, it seems it would be cheaper to just buy a new screen. Though I also read you could buy a new back light for around 10 bucks and do it yourself, but the chance of you completely killing the screen if you're not sure what you're doing are pretty high.

[Kaelan?]

I'm running a Dell Latitude D830 and I can't really see anything when it's not working. I can see that the screen is on though (as in I can tell it's lit up a bit, just displaying black - so I figure whatever it is, it's probably not completely dead).

You kinda have a good point though, I think I just might end up getting an external monitor if this isn't easy (or takes too long) to fix. I don't really need to take it to school, but I absolutely need to have it working it at home

Edit: I just turned it on again after leaving it off for several hours and it's been working fine for about an hour (although I wouldn't be surprised if it died again on me anytime now >_>; )

[Stee]

I had this problem with my old laptop, its basically the inverter for your backlight is dead or the backlight itself went dead.

If your willing to you can fix it by yourself and much cheaper then stores, when I asked a few different laptop maintenance stores they tried to charge me around $400 when it the part replacements cost 40-80 bucks at most if you buy both the inverter and the light.

All it requires is you doing a few minutes of research to see what size your bulb is and your inverter model then just finding the correct way to open your laptops monitor and replacing whatever needs to be replaced. However I'd be careful when replacing the bulb as they have a tendency to snap in half if you use a little too much force.

[Sigi]

check Support.dell.com. They have the teardown docs for your system there

[Killgannon]

yes dell's support site is actualy useful for that kinda stuff, if you dont think you are capable of doing it, im sure you can find someone on here that would do it for less than a repair shop, you just cover shipping and parts... i for one would, i dont mind working on laptops its kinda fun