Some strange backlight symptoms...

[jjmullz]

Last night my MacBook (Black late 2008 version I think) began to show some very strange symptoms.

The screen which has previously showed no signs of problem lost its backlight. There has been no impact/liquid incident of any nature.

I turned the unit off and left it for a few hours before turning at back on again - at which point the backlight came on for a fraction of a second before failing again (same happens when I try again.) I can still see the screen display in the right lighting (at a strain) so I know the display itself is working fine.

Playing around with the brightness settings using the keyboard yields some strange results as I drop the brightness down to 0 and then bring it back up to 1 bar the backlight revives itself for a couple of seconds, occassionally longer however during this period of revival the screen has a slight flicker as though it is struggling to stay lit before failing again. This happens every time - I can quickly press brightness up/down and it will continue to behave the same way.

I am struggling to determine what could be the cause of this issue, surely if it were just a faulty connection then toying with the brightness would have no bearing on whether the screen is lit or not? Or is that misguided?

I noticed a few others had experienced similar problems as a result of some sort of impact/spillage but as I said, in my case there has been nothing of the sort.

I'd really appreciate some help as to where my problem stems from.

Thanks in advance all.

 

[Sonico73]

Last night my MacBook (Black late 2008 version I think) began to show some very strange symptoms.

The screen which has previously showed no signs of problem lost its backlight. There has been no impact/liquid incident of any nature.

I turned the unit off and left it for a few hours before turning at back on again - at which point the backlight came on for a fraction of a second before failing again (same happens when I try again.) I can still see the screen display in the right lighting (at a strain) so I know the display itself is working fine.

Playing around with the brightness settings using the keyboard yields some strange results as I drop the brightness down to 0 and then bring it back up to 1 bar the backlight revives itself for a couple of seconds, occassionally longer however during this period of revival the screen has a slight flicker as though it is struggling to stay lit before failing again. This happens every time - I can quickly press brightness up/down and it will continue to behave the same way.

I am struggling to determine what could be the cause of this issue, surely if it were just a faulty connection then toying with the brightness would have no bearing on whether the screen is lit or not? Or is that misguided?

I noticed a few others had experienced similar problems as a result of some sort of impact/spillage but as I said, in my case there has been nothing of the sort.

I'd really appreciate some help as to where my problem stems from.

Thanks in advance all.

I have the same issue I read that was the inverter I changed it my self but still the same Im looking for more answer! if I now something else I let you know!

 

[jjmullz]

Thanks - that would be very useful.

I've heard of a number of people who had thought it was an inverter issue, replacing it to no avail.

Is it definitely a hardware issue do we think?

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

Pretty sure it's a hardware issue as you get the issue before any software has been loaded. In theory, it could be a weird issue with the firmware, but I doubt it.

But, to make positively sure, have you done the SMC and PRAM resets?

 

[jjmullz]

I'm not even sure what those are!?

Could you point me somewhere that will talk me through those steps? That'd be great!