Gateway laptop screen death

September 21, 2006 8:51 AM

Gateway Solo 9550 black screen issue [of course there will be--->]

My dad's laptop has suddenly stopped illuminating. The OS (winXP) is functioning, but the screen has lost all illumination. There is a very faint trace of what's going on, but other than that, there's nothing. My limited google-foo turned up some other folks suffering the same problem, but no good solution. As always, "thanks" in advance.

posted by red cell to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Sounds like its almost certainly a hardware problem. How long has he had it? My sisters laptop had the same problem. Opening and closing it had caused the connections to just wear down and fail.

If thats the case its either time to send it to be repaired or to replace it.
posted by anonaccount at 9:06 AM on September 21, 2006

Sounds like the backlight died. Sometimes moving the screen back and forth will get it to come back on, but it's on its way out. You could buy a backlight and replace it yourself for between $50 and $100.

Check these guys out. 72-hour turnaround. However, given that the laptops are going for about $100 on eBay, that may not be as cost effective as waiting for a $350-400 deal on a new laptop to pop up on FatWallet.
posted by evariste at 1:38 PM on September 21, 2006

You may have already fixed this since I'm a bit late finding this question, but... have you tried kind of jiggling the... oh, I don't know what to call it... the clasp (I guess)? The little thing at the bottom of the keyboard where the laptop clicks shut when you close it. If it's stuck the screen won't light up.

I had this exact problem with my Gateway laptop and freaked out until someone suggested that I fiddle with that first. And it worked!

Just something to try.
posted by INTPLibrarian at 1:00 PM on September 25, 2006