On 5/28/2010 11:05 AM, Ben Myers wrote:
On 5/28/2010 10:25 AM, John wrote:
The display on my 5630 is dim - not completely dark but probably only
about
30 to 40% as bright as it used to be.

Having googled for what causes dim and dark displays in laptop screens
(after making sure it wasn't the lid close switch) I decided to go for
the
cheapest things first, so I bought a brand new inverter board.
Although it's
definitely the right one, it's actually worse than the existing
inverter in
that it strobes a bit. Doesn't do anything for my problem - the screen is
neither brighter nor darker, just a bit stroboscopic. Hmm ...

So, I then buy a secondhand (but guaranteed tested and working) video
cable
from Ebay and replace that. Still no change - the screen is still as dim,
whether used with new or old inverter. Hmm again ...

Oh, at this point I should say that I've checked the voltage between
pin 1
of the inverter input and ground (which, I believe, should roughly be
between 10 and 20 volts) and got 19.36V - so we know that the inverter is
getting the correct feed from the mobo.

I then look at changing the CCFL backlight tube but (a) can't find one
and
(b) even if I could, I've read many horror stories of breaking the LCD
panel
whilst trying to change the tube, so I decide to bite the bullet and
buy a
whole new LCD panel because they come with a new tube already in them
- and
I might as well upgrade from the old matte screen to a new glossy one
if I'm
going to do this )

Guess what? Yep, you guessed right - still fekkin' faulty!! Display is
still
only at about 30 to 40% brightness - and that's with any combination of
new/old video cable and new/old inverter.

Any other ideas folks?

TIA
John



Some brands of laptops (IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads come to mind) have a pair
of key combinations to brighten or dim the display. With the Thinkpads,
fn-Home brightens the display and fn-End dims it.

Some brands of laptops, e.g. Dell, have LCD brightness controls in the
BIOS, one setting when on battery and another when on wall power.

Not sure what the Acers have built in to control LCD brightness, but
maybe the brightness is on a low setting? ... Ben Myers

Hello John! While I was reading I kept saying no it is the lamp, the
lamp (well most low brightness is mostly because of the lamp)! Then you
got to the lamp and I thought oh no! Ben is right of course, I would
have checked that first before doing anything else though.

Gee John! The only thing left if everything else was okay is the
motherboard. The motherboard causing this problem is really rare.

Are you sure that was a new LCD panel? Or was it used? As the lamps gets
dimmer and dimmer overtime. Many will run for about 18 months if you run
them 24/7. Use them less and you can push them 5 years and more. They
are florescent tubes after all and if you use them 50/50 and get 5 years
out of them that is pretty good.

--
Bill
Thunderbird Portable 3.0 (20091130)