I have an Acer 1640Z laptop which has recently developed a problem with its screen, I was wondering if anyone could help diagnose the problem.
When I turn the machine on, the screen works fine for a few seconds, and then the brightness goes very, very dim – to the point where it almost looks as if it is completely off. This will even happen at the BIOS password prompt. Usually I can get it working if I turn it off and on enough times – eventually it will work, it seems as if running the computer for a few minutes to warm it up helps. I've tried booting without the battery plugged in, with another Acer power supply, just with the battery and no power supply and also I've tried waggling the screen – none of which have had any affect.
Also, if power saving kicks in and turns the screen off, when it wakes up and turns the screen back on, it often flickers and goes out again – having to be remedied by turning the computer off and back on again (I usually just put it into sleep mode to save time). What is interesting though is the way it flickers, in horizontal bands – some dark, others less so, and some full brightness but with a grainy quality – almost as if displaying using only 4-bit colours. It's hard to be sure on the graininess though because the flickering is pretty quick and either stops and works ok or goes dark completely.
The only thing I can think is that somewhere there is a mechanical contact which when cold causes the flickering and going dim, but that wouldn't explain why it also does it in power save mode when the rest of the computer is running as normal.
The machine is coming up to its third birthday so I suppose as far as laptops go it's getting on a bit, but for my work it's more than adequate so I'm not really ready to buy a new one just yet.
Any help on the matter would be most welcome.
When I turn the machine on, the screen works fine for a few seconds, and then the brightness goes very, very dim – to the point where it almost looks as if it is completely off. This will even happen at the BIOS password prompt. Usually I can get it working if I turn it off and on enough times – eventually it will work, it seems as if running the computer for a few minutes to warm it up helps. I've tried booting without the battery plugged in, with another Acer power supply, just with the battery and no power supply and also I've tried waggling the screen – none of which have had any affect.
Also, if power saving kicks in and turns the screen off, when it wakes up and turns the screen back on, it often flickers and goes out again – having to be remedied by turning the computer off and back on again (I usually just put it into sleep mode to save time). What is interesting though is the way it flickers, in horizontal bands – some dark, others less so, and some full brightness but with a grainy quality – almost as if displaying using only 4-bit colours. It's hard to be sure on the graininess though because the flickering is pretty quick and either stops and works ok or goes dark completely.
The only thing I can think is that somewhere there is a mechanical contact which when cold causes the flickering and going dim, but that wouldn't explain why it also does it in power save mode when the rest of the computer is running as normal.
The machine is coming up to its third birthday so I suppose as far as laptops go it's getting on a bit, but for my work it's more than adequate so I'm not really ready to buy a new one just yet.
Any help on the matter would be most welcome.
