I have a Dell laptop that's about 3-4 years old. My computer screen blacks out periodically and I'm not sure why. The power is on when it blacks out and I could still here video/music etc from the speakers. Does anyone know why this happens and how I could fix it? thanks!
Sounds like the backlight is going out. Plug it in to an external monitor to see if it does it then. Backlight out means new monitor. But you can still use it as a pc with the external monitor.
If the backlight is out how can I replace it? Is it easy to replace? where can I get it fixed? How much will it cost me? thanks for the advice!
My sister's Dell labtop did the same thing starting 1 month ago, and it gradually got worst. The surprising thing about is that the labtop was only about a year and a half old. I guess it's just that Dell computers are sucky. The problem is that your monitor is burning out. If it is a labtop you will have to buy a new one.
You can send it in to Dell to get it replaced, but with a computer as old as yours, generally it will actually cost you more to get the backlight replaced than to buy a new computer of equivalent power.
There's a Dell laptop at my job that has monitor blacks out. Screen goes black but when I press the "function" or whatever key + brightness/contrast adjust keys the screen image reappears and the black goes away.... Almost like its resetting to zero-brightness/contrast. Even though I can remove the black its still annoying having to do that every time it starts up.
Hook it up to an external monitor. If it still blacks out, then there is most likely something wrong with the video card/chip. If you get continual display, then there is either something wrong with the laptop screen or the connection between the video card/chip and the screen. If you look on the Dell web site and find the documentation for your laptop, you may see how to get to the video connection cable. The next time it blacks out, jiggle that cable a bit and see if it comes back. If it does, then the cable cold be flaky or loose.
