Sony Vaio dark screen woes

Question

We have an out of warranty Sony Vaio VGN SZ18GP - it seems the LCD brightness is down to the lowest setting (the screen is barely readable). It is dark throughout the boot up sequence implying that it isn't an OS issue.

The fn brightness +/- keys don't work (with or without holding the fn modifier key).

Also the fn switch to external monitor key doesn't have any effect.

Perhaps the screen is broken? I'm inclined to think that this is something to do with the brightness setting. I'm considering opening it up to find the CMOS battery to reset to factory defaults.

Any ideas?

Ashley

Answer 1

Sounds like the backlight has died on your LCD.

I'd be guessing it's non-trivial to fix, even if you could find parts yourself; a service centre is your best bet.

Answer 2

This is not necessarily a hardware issue. It could be a problem with your video drivers or an ACPI driver issue.

Does the FN key work for anything at all? You say that the monitor control does not work either, which would lead me to suspect that it's a driver issue or FN key problem.

I'd suggest you install the latest revisions of all your drivers first and feedback any update to us. You can download drivers specific to your model on the Sony site, but you may have to register your laptop's serial number with them first. See the last post on this page for more info:

http://forums.windrivers.com/archive/index.php/t-32064.html

If it is the backlight at fault, you should barely be able to see anything. Sony's LCD innards are historically quite difficult to repair, but a specialist repair shop should be able to give you a free estimate on how much it would cost.

I hope this helps.