Backlight goes out randomly

notreallyashark — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:49:46 GMT

Hi,

Recently, the backlight of my about 3 year old vgn-fz38m laptop goes out randomly. I mean, it does not happen after moving the screen and also not after working on it for a certain time, for what I think it is not a heat problem nor a loose connection.

Here is a short list of what I already did and a short description of my laptop's problem

pressing Fn + F6 or F7 do not make a change, for the backlight seems to be turned off
when working the colours are fine, white is not displayed as pinkish or dim.
when connected to an eternal monitor, everything works fine
when closing and opening the lid sometimes the backlight does turn on for a few sec but that's it
when rebooting it, things go back to normal, well, for some time

So, could it be the backlight being dodgy (which I am not too sure about, for, as far as I can tell, then it should not be working fine for several hours without a problem)? Or do I need a new inverter? Or is it a connection issue after all (which I'm also not too sure about for moving, or not moving, typing or not typing do not make a difference; sometimes it happens without me even touching it!)

Any ideas?

Thanks for any suggestions.

PS: I checked its powermanagement, the options are switched to 'never turn off the screen'. And although I have to admit that I can't find a lid switch on mine, when I close it the laptop shuts the screen down. So there hould be something... which, luckily, seems to be working.

Message was edited by: notreallyashark

Backlight goes out randomly

rich912 — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:35:10 GMT

Hi notreallyashark,,

The FZ38M is one of the models that Sony acknowledges is affected by the faulty NVIDIA chip problem although the symptoms you report do not seem to correspond with the normal symptoms.

http://genesis.sony-europe.com/instranet/ccil_sony/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=53420&l=en_GB&m=VGN-FZ38M

I would suspect an inverter problem but it may be worth an out of warranty call with Support (0905 0310006) or one of Sony Service partners to see what they think.

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/contacts/asc.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VGN-FZ38M

Rich

Backlight goes out randomly

notreallyashark — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:24:31 GMT

Hi Rich,

thanks a lot for the link and the fast reply. I am going to do that

topic Backlight goes out randomly in PCs & Accessories

Backlight goes out randomly

Backlight goes out randomly

Hi notreallyashark,,

Backlight goes out randomly