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Question

Screen doesn't work in my Samsung R610 laptop

Apr 13, 2019 11:53AM PDT

Hello,

I'm gonna start from the beginning. I have the option in my laptop to turn off the screen with the combination of keys FN+F5. The funny thing is the screen is never completely turned off after I press these keys. You can still see everything on the screen but it's extremely faint and barely visible. And you can see it only when the light in a room is on or in a daylight - you can't see anything if the room is completely dark. The screen is turned off completely only when I use an external monitor.
I also have an option to change the brightness of the screen with FN+Up/Down.

So here's my problem. I recently noticed that when the brightness was not set on maximum the screen was blinking in second or longer intervals (one second was brighter and the moment later was darker). Everything was OK when the brightness was at the highest level. There was no blinking at all.

Yesterday I wanted to make the screen a little less bright and when I pressed FN+Down the screen flickered which lasted about 0.2 second and "died".
The thing is I can still see everything on the screen - it looks like it has been just turned off using FN+F5. So it's not completely dead. And I can still use the laptop with the external monitor. Everything works fine beside the screen.
So here's my questions:

1. I'm pretty sure the screen ribbon/cable burned/broke. If so how can I see everything on the screen? Does that mean that the screen has two power supplies? How does it work?

2. What solutions would you suggest to solve the problem? I'm planning to open the laptop and check if maybe a loose cable is the problem. But I'd like to hear some advice first.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
This looks like a decade old laptop.
Apr 13, 2019 12:24PM PDT

We never repair old C2D laptops. We just go to groupon and get another if that's the machine and CPU the client wants. At this age all parts are beyond the service life and you would need a service manual (rare!) to answer the question about power supplies. All the shops I know will not accept this for repair.

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This looks like a decade old laptop
Apr 14, 2019 1:33PM PDT

Yes, the laptop is almost 10 years old but it's a wonderful machine. I hasn't aged a day since I bought it in 2009. Anyway I'm kind of surprised that you would not repair an old laptop. Are you sure no shop is willing to even attempt to fix it? Is there a special reason why? I'm really hoping that I will be able to find someone that will try to revive the broken screen.

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Here no shop will take it on. Why?
Apr 14, 2019 1:44PM PDT

I checked on Groupon and found C2D laptops ready to ship at about 150USD. The minimum counter charge is 150USD and parts are not available from the makers so the shops won't touch such old laptops.

You can try finding parts and swap what you think is bad but no tech can nail what part to swap 100% of the time so very few will tell you to change this or that.

My view is at this age you either find a cheap replacement like Groupon has, try replacing parts as you see fit or shop a new laptop.

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Answer
backlight
Apr 13, 2019 1:00PM PDT

it sounds like a bad backlight.

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backlight
Apr 14, 2019 1:20PM PDT

Thanks to your reply I did some kind of a research and now I know how it all works. And this can indeed be a problem with backlight or inverter.