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Help with an old computer

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luckydud13

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Sep 21, 2008
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I am new here, I have an old laptop I pulled out of a box, It will turn on, and it is really dark, how can I fix the backlight? There is a function button and a backlight button, tried clicking both of those but it didn't do anything. If someone can help me out that'b great
 
If the backlight has gone out, then it's a goner, like ahm said. Only thing to repair it is to replace the screen and that likely is not that hard, but takes a bit of skill to take things apart without breaking it (let alone the complexity). You could repair it or find a similar one and use this one as parts.

More detail is needed, like Terry said.

Nathan
 
Replacing CCFL backlights on LCD screens isn't impossible, but it's also likely that the inverter that drives the backlight may have gone south.

Make, model of the machine will help a lot.
 
Could you replace the whole FL light and inverter with some other light source that is eaiser to work with? An array of LEDs maybe? I've thought of such a thing when I had a similar situation, but I think I've gotten rid of the affected laptop.
 
If it got a VGA conection (problably not if it is a really old computer), try to hook it up to a monitor.

If everything fails, and you are only using it for DOS commands, you can press CTRL+P while on the command prompt to print everything outputed to the screen (through DOS of course, not all (escapely not graphic based) programs have support for this function).
 
shawn510 said:
Could you replace the whole FL light and inverter with some other light source that is eaiser to work with? An array of LEDs maybe? I've thought of such a thing when I had a similar situation, but I think I've gotten rid of the affected laptop.
Click to expand...

Whlie LEDs may work for cellphones and PDAs as a backlight, they're not going to hack it for larger screen laptops. Those CCFLs are very bright!
 
I've also had cases of the inverter being in the main body of the laptop & only the lamps in the screen, connected by silicone covered wires which have flexed & broken with the opening & closing of the lid. Watch out though if you're looking for the break with the power turned on, the wire ends have a habit of poking through the silicone insulation & into close proximity to your finger ends, ZZZAAAAPPPPP!!!!! (it is actually quite nasty)
 
The inverter board fried on one of my Thinkpads. I replaced it and it worked again. Then it fried again. (I had it plugged into 220V ungrounded with a 3-prong 110/220 power supply; ground pin was floating. Had no choice. The whole *building* was ungrounded.)

Your laptop may be salvageable. Search Google for something like "your laptop name" plus "inverter board" or "bad screen", stuff like that. You might find something.
 
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