Whats wrong with it?

toiletduck

My Packard Bell is acting up. When i power it on, everythings grand except the screen is very dark, i have to hold it very close to me and at an angle to see anything. However when sometimes (i've been turning it off and on) its grand. It did this before for a few days at the start of december but just as i was going to bring it back to PC world, the problem stopped. And now it's back!


Anyone have any experience with anything like this?

daywalker

sounds like there is a problem with the invertor which converts power for the backlight in the display, the fact that its working sometimes or at some angles could indicate a connection that is making or breaking or else the invertor is on its way out. I'd say it will probably go altogether eventaully, i.e. screen permantly dark. i'd say bring it back to get sent for repair, telling them its intermittent.

toiletduck

thanks, it's pi$$ing me off so much!

ai ing

What about checking the brightness settings?
Many laptops have an application from the manufacturer to control the brightness of the screen and other power saving settings. A possible reason why it works at startup and shutdown is because that application is not running.
My laptop does something similiar where at startup the screen is much too bright but when the application loads up that controls the screen brightness it dims to what I have set it to.

toiletduck

Turned it on just now and what do you know but it's back up and running grand!

toiletduck

ai ing wrote:

What about checking the brightness settings?
Many laptops have an application from the manufacturer to control the brightness of the screen and other power saving settings. A possible reason why it works at startup and shutdown is because that application is not running.
My laptop does something similiar where at startup the screen is much too bright but when the application loads up that controls the screen brightness it dims to what I have set it to.

how would one go about changing these settings?

daywalker

toiletduck wrote:

how would one go about changing these settings?

Most laptops use a combination of FN + F6/F7/F8, usually a brightness symbol with + or - on the Function keys to turn up or down the brightness.

toiletduck

daywalker wrote:

Most laptops use a combination of FN + F6/F7/F8, usually a brightness symbol with + or - on the Function keys to turn up or down the brightness.

yeah that didnt fix it when it was on the blink.

Karoma

Test in BIOS.
If NOK, Remove external devices (USB, etc.) and re-test.
If NOK in the BIOS still - it's a hardware issue most likely.

If it's OK in the BIOS: Boot into Safe Mode;
Start -> Run-> devmgmt.msc -> Expand Display Adapters ;
Right-click on the entries ;
Select Uninstall - confirm removal ;
Reboot.