Is My Macbook Air Busted? Am I screwed?

[Master Fwiffo]

I got this thing January last year - I don’t use it that often, mostly for discord, simple document editing, ect. I open it up today and am greeted with a black screen.

No problem, force restart. Nothing. Checked the power, it’s fine. Keys light up and occasionally gives an error sound when I press it - and the screen is on, black. Can’t even get the startup sound to play. It even gets a little warm (and the fans came on once). And what’s really weird is that I had no evidence anything was wrong the last time I tried to use it, nor have I dropped, submerses, frozen or done anything that would harm the thing.

Tried resetting the SMC, nothing. Tried all the various command option control whatever resets nothing. Tried crying, nothing. Realized I didn’t get applecare+ for it (I meant to but apparently forgot), warranty is expired.

Is there any hope for me or is it a lost cause?

 

[Supra Mac]

Do you an external screen you can connect to and see if it works to see if display settings may change something.

 

[lambertjohn]

Startup sound? What year model of Air is it?

 

[Master Fwiffo]

Startup sound? What year model of Air is it?

Late 2018.

 

[Master Fwiffo]

edit It didn’t quote. Weird.

So I plugged it into an external display. Well the good news is that I can see things. The bad news is I’m not sure what I can do from here. The laptop display itself is still black. I’ve messed around with the settings, rebooted again, all sorts of stuff, but can’t get so much as a flicker. Is the display just dead?

 

[dubvulture]

This might sound silly, but I know of someone else who had this issue and it turned out that the screen had accidentally been dimmed all the way to off. Have you tried pushing the screen brightness button a few times to increase brightness?

 

[chrfr]

edit It didn’t quote. Weird.

So I plugged it into an external display. Well the good news is that I can see things. The bad news is I’m not sure what I can do from here. The laptop display itself is still black. I’ve messed around with the settings, rebooted again, all sorts of stuff, but can’t get so much as a flicker. Is the display just dead?

The suggestion above to try the brightness is a good one; I too have heard of this happening. Try shining a flashlight on the screen to see if you can see an image.

 

[Master Fwiffo]

Do you an external screen you can connect to and see if it works to see if display settings may change something.

Late 2018.

This might sound silly, but I know of someone else who had this issue and it turned out that the screen had accidentally been dimmed all the way to off. Have you tried pushing the screen brightness button a few times to increase brightness?

Yeah I actually had. When it’s connected to the external monitor the symbol even shows when I hit the increase brightness button. I hadn’t tried to flashlight thing until now, but nothing there.

It seems like the screen itself is getting power but no signal, as I can see the faint glow of the screen.