Hello all,

I have an Acer Aspire laptop. When the laptop powers on I can see the Acer screen and then the screen looks like it goes blank, however you can still see the letters on the screen if you look at the screen from the right angle. I have already replaced the screen, inverter, and lcd cable. I have also tested the external video through VGA and it works flawlessly, so by that im assuming the GPU is fine. Not sure what to do next, any help is appreciated. Thanks.

The backlight for the screen is coming on at boot, and then drops out. Since the light does come on, the intermittent is in the power supply for the backlight.I had the same problem with a tower and and an HP monitor once, out of warranty. I ended up just buying another monitor. With the laptop, if you don't need the portability, you could just use an external monitor. Otherwise, you need to get the backlight power supply repaired. Suggest you contact Acer via their web site and see what they'd charge to fix it.

Fred Wagner

  

Is the power supply backlight part of the motherboard?

I don't know. You'll have to find some tech info on that machine. The most maintenance I've ever done on a laptop was to replace the CMOS battery on a Thinkpad - buried deep under the keyboard. You might consider taking it to a repair tech who specializes in laptops, if you have one locally. Otherwise,your approach will depend on whether the laptop belongs to a customer, or is your own to experiment on. It wouldn't hurt to contact the manufacturer to find out how much they would charge for the repair. There might even be an unpublished warranty on the problem.

Fred Wagner

  

I entered "Acer laptop backlight not working" in the Bing search window and got lots of hits. You might check out some of those leads - might help you solve the problem with the backlight power supply.

Fred Wagner

  

backlight power supply is the inverter that was all ready replaced...What happens if you boot from a bootable cd? does the backlight still go out? were the replaced components new or used? Was it the correct inverter board? they are very specific, and most models of laptops come with different options for lcd panels, and the inverters are tied to the specific type of panel. In other words if the machine came with 1680 x 1050 and had an option for 1920 x 1080, the inverter will not be the same, nor will it be the same say for one model that has a 1680 x 1050, and another has the same resolution screen, it would have to be an exact match to the lcd model number, not the laptop model number.

The parts that were replaced were used but tested. The inverter is identical to the one that came with the laptop i matched them using the part number. I did a littble bit more research and think that it could be the power button board, which controls dimming the screen when the laptop lid is closed. If this part is defective would it cause this problem to occur?

Yes

I just received that part in and no luck!  have no idea where to proceed from here. Any help would be appreciated, I'm thinking about recommending the customer buy a new laptop.

how about the  external power brick, have you tried another one? (ac/dc power supply)

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Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. - Confucius

what happens when you boot into the bios?
 

I have not yet tried a new adapter. I just find it hard to believe that the adapter would cause this but I am open to try anything to get it to work. Also I can boot into the BIOS fine but the screen remains very very dim as always. When plugging in through external VGA brightness is perfect I can boot into BIOS and use windows normally without any issue whatsoever.  

The new adapter did the same exact thing. Not sure where to go from here. Probably gonna recommend purchasing new equipment. Any other ideas please feel free to share. Thanks

is there some sort of light sensor? maybe you can turn that off?
 

__________________________________________________________
Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. - Confucius

No i already looked and found that it was a magnet attached to the power board, then i replaced the power board and still nothing.

?? very tough...
flash / default the bios (with external monitor attached?)

check all connectors (USB etc) for bent pins that might short...

maybe it's some power function in the bios that's messing this up?

__________________________________________________________
Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. - Confucius

Ive checked all connectors already. I did default BIOS already however I haven't tried. Do you mean like a BIOS update?

yes, if it's newer than what you have on the laptop.

it's tough if the most likely culprits are not it.....

__________________________________________________________
Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. - Confucius

Wtih all the time you're spending on this, I trust you're an in-house tech on salary. Even so, at some point you may have to decide to either let the customer use the laptop with an external monitor, or copy their files to a replacement laptop using the external monitor yourself.

Fred Wagner

  

Your problem is notthe inverter its a cracked cfl bulb. they will "blink" then go to pink split second then out . you can change the buld but its not for beginners i have a dificult time changing some of them the goog news is the screen you can get for $66 and change it yourself in 10 min. if you need assistance let me know .

Comdirect, he already replaced the screen, inverter, and cable. Now it is possible that either of the parts, may have been damaged ion shipping, or just don't work now.