BleepingComputer.com: Notebook Lcd Won't Turn On

I bought a Gateway M-6750 notebook from BestBuy 6 months ago. I haven't had any issues until tonight. I tried to turn it on and it wouldn't power up. I know I fully charged it the night before and used it for about 15 minutes then I did a shutdown and went to bed. I then plugged up the charger and it powered up but nothing on the LCD. I tried pressing the "fn" + f8 key to see if I could brighten the screen but nothing happened. When I physically open and close the notebook, it looks like the LCD momentarily lights up then goes out again. I unplugged the battery and tried to turn the notebook on using just the charger but it wouldn't power up.

The weirdest event is that after 15 minutes hooked up to the charger, the battery indicator turned from red (charging) to blue (fully charged). Still no light on the LCD but everything else is working. If I look hard enough I can see the Windows login screen but it's very faint.

I'm not sure this is still under warranty or not. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what happened? How can I fix this?

I've had similar experiences of what is happening to your computer. Fortunately its fairly easy to repair but if you have had your laptop only for six months, you should still be covered.
Sounds like your backlight is no longer working and needs to be changed out. There is another component that also could be the problem but both are related. Get in contact with a Gateway rep and tell them. With their reputation you should have no problem getting the repair done, but you will have to send it in. My HP laptop had the same and it took about a week from the time I sent it till I got it back and it worked great. Apparently though this is an issue since this has happened on three occasions.
Your backlight is exactly as it sounds, it more or less illuminates your LCD where you can see the screen. That is why you can see it faintly.
Hope this works for you.

6 months? Definitely send it back
http://support.gateway.com/

This post has been edited by garmanma: 13 August 2008 - 10:14 AM

Thanks for the info guys. I took it back to BestBuy this afternoon and they also believed it is the backlight.

You were correct Gabriel00, it is still under factory warranty. They are sending it to Gateway for the repairs and supposedly I'll have it back in two weeks.

This makes me want to probably invest in an extended type of warranty next time.

I normally don't believe in extended warranties, but with today's electronics, it doesn't seem to that bad of an idea