Strange MacBook problem

"andy"

"andy"

"andy"

Soldato
Joined
9 Jun 2005
Posts
13,990
Having some trouble with my MacBook which has suddenly became unuseable:(

Basically when I switch it on or open the lid to wake it from sleep the screen comes on but then just goes black after a few seconds.

By opening and closing the lid a few times I managed to boot into windows and I have the same problem

Any ideas what could be wrong ? It seems to be working fine in the background and it looks fine for the few seconds that the screen shows an image
 
bjust to make things stranger if i use the keyboard hotkeys for brightness and put it to a dull setting then the scree will stay on

as soon as i go past a certain point of brightness (3rd or 4th) the image dissapears again. and its the actual full screen going off/black rather than just the backlight !
 
How old is it, what's the graphics chipset? It could be the nvidia problem.
 
Damn old. It's intel gma.

After i posted lastnight it gradually started working even at the higher brightness and I was using it for an hour or so . But now this morning I am back to just a few seconds :/. I'm bamboozled
 
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Sounds like your backlight has gone on the blink. Can you still see a ghost of the image at an angle when the screen is black? If so a new backlight is quite cheap and not hideous to install.
 
cheers for popping in. its working again now momentarily but yup lots and lots of googling has led me to believe it is an inverter or backlight issue.

this is backed up by claims of invertors usually going wrong when its cold (my room is very cold, and the working after the macbook has been on for a while could be because of the heat its giving off?)

the only thing putting me off ordering a new inverter this very second is that moving the screen when its on higher levels of brighness can also make the light go off ? even thouh it will then come back on in that same posistion as soon as i use the brightness hotkeys to 'turn off' (the already black ) and then turn back on the screen

i guess what i need to know is what does dimming the brightness to none then back on with the hotkeys actually do as it seems to make it work for a while once its warmed back up . im hoping it is turning the inverter off then on ?
 
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Mine is 4 years old (nearly) and flickers on specific settings and angles - but specific to that day - it really is random. Still an absolutely solid computer aside from that.
 
Tried repairing the disk permissions, using Disk Utility?

Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
 
Oops forgot about this.

Update...

Bought a new backlight invertor from eBay and it's been spot on ever since.

Realised it was Definetly the invertor after realising that the length of time it stayed on for and level of brightness I could set it at got longer/higher when the temperature of the MacBook or room I was in got higher
 
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