Screen blacking out on laptop

Hey guys,

I bought a dell inspiron 8200 laptop in may this year, and it has been working fine until recently, when the screen sort of "blacks out" about 30 secs after turning on the laptop.
When i say blacking out, the screen goes extremely dim, but still shows everything on screen. It sort of looks like the backlight is not working.

1) The screen will suddenly go brighter for a couple of seconds, and then will suddenly go very dark.

2) This always happens about 20-40secs after turning on the laptop.

3) The screen seems to stay on for longer, if the laptop has been switched off for a long time, but usually no longer than a minute.

4) If the laptop is shut, ands then opened again, the screen will once again be fine for about 30 secs then go dark again. (when i shut, i just mean the screen closed, so it turns off)

5) Occasionally a buzzing noise can be heard from the screen. Its intensity varies with the position of the screen. This has only happened a couple of times, and lasted for about a minute, and stopped when the laptop was plugged into the mains. (The prob acuurs whether on battery or mains)


Can anyone help? Is it possible for me to fix it myself, im quite comfortable around hardware, and regularly build pc's. If not, can anyone recomend the cheapest way to fix it? ( im a poor student!)

Is it possible to open up the screen on this model.

I would greatly appreciate any help on this topic.

Thanks guys.

Regards,
Bob.

I would call Dell, assuming that you bought this laptop from them, they all carry a 1 year warranty. I doubt that there is anything inside that you can fix.

well, normally i would do that, but it was bought from dell.com, ie. america, and im now in the UK. I doubt i could call them, and even if i did, then i would most probably be without a laptop for months, which i simply cannot afford.

Do you i could go to Dell UK, or does it have to be the US?

Are you sure there is nothing i can do? I would appreciate any help, at all.

Could it possibly be software related?

ok assuming you're still under the first year warranty you can take it to a dell dealer in the uk so you can claim it under 1 year international warranty which is coming defaulty to notebook computers. According to your descrption it can be a problem in fl inverter which is the controller for the lcd unit. You can do some tricks to fix it but i'd suggest first you go to the authorized dll dealer in the uk. If you ddn't get any luck then ket me know so u cn try my method.

It sounds like the power to the monitor is wavering, and then kinda fixing itself ( ). I'm not an expert, but I knew someone that this happened to, but he closed his car trunk door on his laptop . That may have effected it.