dark screen

I have this problem occasionally with my inspiron 1100. When i come back from hibernate or start up my laptop the screen is really dark. When i plug it in to power it goes away, but still its quite an inconveninace when i'm trying to work. I dont know whats wrong with and i do try the fn+up arrow sometimes and that doesn't work.

Message Edited by bigpappasmurf on 12-23-2003 08:39 PM

have you tried turning up the brightness in the bios? there is a setting there to increase the screen brightness. just for the heck of it, try fn+up arrow also..

it is only dark when using the battery? try adjusting the bios brightness, there are two settings. one is while using the adapter, the other is while using the battery.

Brightness is on max, both for power and battery in bios. With dark screen, it also respond to brightness settings, but with less darkness screen is completely dark. Btw, screen is functioning normally without option turn off monitor, and what is very strange, sometimes it responds normally to turn back normal screen (on mouse movement or keyboard). Hybernate is off also.

In your opinion, what can be problem-software or hardware?? Is it possible to have some software conflict?

have you tried an external monitor? if its good there, then it might be hardware.

personally, if lcd is too dim for you, call dell tech support and have them replace the lcd panel.

I'm still haveing the problem even with the settings in the bios set to the max.

Yes, problem just appears when computer is working, and monitor is set to go off. This is happening not every time. I don't belive that something is wrong with the monitor, because sometimes it works fine-specially when I quickly resume after turning off the monitor. If I wait more than few minutes, problem appears.

Is it possible that there is conflict between dell's quick set and windows' power management? Because when I change settings in quick set, in ctr panel settings stays the same,

and usually after settings in quick set, computer starts to behave strange with power managemnet (like turning off the monitor when the lid is shuted down, even if I don't give option for this).

Is there any possibility to adjust power settings in registry file directly and how to do this??

and I forgot to mention this,

I found out that in video card settings, under monitors I have default monitor, one digital flat panel, and again default monitor, strange??

I have an Inspiron 2500 and have similar problems.  Though I set all power management functions to "never" its still a gamble whether or not I'll have a screen when I start up.  Normally what happens is I start the computer and the screen is lit.  Between the first Windows screen and the blue welcome screen (XP) the screen goes dark and doesn't come back.  On good days, I can move the screen down, just short of closing it, bring it back up and its lit again.  However, if I the screen goes dark for any reason (screen saver, restart, anything) I'm hosed for many hours before I can get it to work again.

Any ideas?  Is it relavant that I'm currently living in Russia so I'm on a 230V, 50Hz system.  Of course the coverter is supposed to cover this.

Thanks

I have jsut taken delivery of a new Inspiron 1100, and I also have the same problem. The system often boots with a dark LCD screen and repeatly pressing Fn LCD/CRT the LCD will eventaully fire back to normal brightness.

 

Dell have offered to repalce the LCD panel, but I think the problem relates to power management not hardware.

I heard from friend that usually problem is related to hardware, to inverter board or I don't know the name under monitor, which serves for this,

btw, I tried everything with software, even reinstall windows and everything, it's not related to software-even I thought it is. And Dell sold me new computer like this, which can only make that I won't buy anything from them anymore,

Bye

I have done further testing of the problem and I have shifted my point of view away from thinking it is software related back to being hardware related.

My problem is intermittent and repeatly pressing Fn F8 will eventually "fire" the screen back to normal brightness. I suggest you try this as "work around" until Dell can provide us with an answer!

Rob

Received my new Inspiron 5100 yesterday, and I'm experiencing the very same thing. It's intermittent, and I do not know exactly how to reproduce the problem, but it's always when I'm on battery power. I spend an hour with tech support, but we resolved nothing. (The screen was not dark at that time, so we cannot see that what we do make it go away.)

Have you been able to reproduce the problem? If the problem persists in the next week or so I'm shipping the darn thing back... 

Cheers,

Zevi.

For ZeviB,

I bought inspiron 5100 4 months ago, and I had the problem from the beggining, first only on battery, after on normal power also. I think it is hardware related, and I will ask for change of monitor, 'cause Dell support didn't give any solution until now, and generaly it is just waste of time with them