Backlight went poof and goes to sleep in 5 seconds

[Basementviking]

Any tech advice would be much appreciated.

Model A1181 mid 2007 Black Macbook, software all totally updated.

Background: Twice last week I was on Facetime and the display went black (not dim ala a bad backlight) I could still hear the person speaking, hear my music, but no display. Any time I am doing anything with any video my fan goes to over 5k rpm, temp spikes. Seems high but this is my first Macbook and from what people say that is normal.

Friday night I threw in two new memory sticks. Has been working fine.

Saturday night. I was browsing the internet and about 10 minutes in my screen went dim (not black, ala looking with a flashlight and you could still see some display.) After the display went black about 10 seconds later the machine went into sleep mode. I hit the space bar, it came out of sleep, the display did not come back (dim, not black) but after about 5 seconds it went back into sleep mode.

If you power down and power up via the power button the display will flash a dim white for about two seconds that go completely dim. I can see the apple logo barely, etc. Tried to turn the brightness all the way down and all the way up trick numerous times. No dice.

I've found one other person with the exact same problem in the official apple forms. No responses to his question other than mine.

My fears:

Bad inverter board
Bad inverter cable
Ram isn't seated right
10.6.5 software issue (heard a few people saying they are having problems with their machines perpetually going into sleep since the update)
Backlight is toast

I'm going to take the keyboard off and check to make sure the RAM is seated properly and start there. If that is fine, what's next?

Thanks all,

BV

 

[AlphaDogg]

Try popping in the original ram. If it fixes the issue, then the ram is at fault. If it does not solve the issue, it means the ram is not at fault, and there is a deeper issue with your computer...

 

[Basementviking]

Did that. Nothing changed.

One new thing I noticed is that once the mb is going into sleep, if I open and close the lid it does not try to come out of sleep.

 

[logana]

My fears:

Bad inverter board
Bad inverter cable
Ram isn't seated right
10.6.5 software issue (heard a few people saying they are having problems with their machines perpetually going into sleep since the update)
Backlight is toast

I dont think it is any of those !!

My guess is a faulty logicboard - the inverter is probably fine but the logicboard is failing to provide the voltage to keep it lit.

Not an uncommon fault on MacBooks and the symptoms you describe fit perfectly

sorry....

 

[Basementviking]

I'm not sweating it too hard. I got an immense deal on the mb.

I paid so little for the machine that if I parted it out I would easily make my money back.

Or if I find a good deal on a logic board I'll jump on it.

Or I'll wonder if the inverter board and hall sensor didn't crap the bed at the same time. Is this possible/anyone ever heard of this?