BleepingComputer.com: Display problem

Hi all, I'd appreciate any help for a problem I'm having with an Acer 7520 laptop. Until recently the display was bright (normal) on the laptop screen and also on the television when I connected it as an external monitor for watching online sport. Yesterday both the laptop screen and the picture on the tv had gone quite dim. I went into the display properties in Vista Control Panel and put the screen display to its maximum via the Nvidia properties icon. This now has brought the brightness and contrast up to what was normal previously, but I now have no further adjustment if the screens continue to dim in future.

Having looked on the web for answers, the two options I think are: that the inverter is failing, or the backlight is failing. Is there any way to tell which one is the problem, or is there any other area I should be addressing? The computer works fine otherwise and I can adjust the brightness via the Nvidia, or by Fn + Left/Right key. The Acer program to use the laptop alone or laptop and external monitor works without a problem, and the VGA cable has been tried on a different computer and works fine. The confusing thing for me is that both pictures are dim, whereas the usual complaint is that the laptop screen is dim and the external monitor works ok.
Any help would be really appreciated.

Welcome to Bleepingcomputer.

Being that both the laptop screen and external monitor screen are dark rules out everything except the on-board VGA chip.

Have you tried uninstalling the video card drivers and re-installing with the latest drivers available from nVidia?

Bruce.

If reinstalling drivers does not help, it is likely a hardware issue with the NVidia GPU. I seem to recall the 7000M GPUs are still under the extended warranty that NVidia set up with the OEMs (long story, defective chipsets, lawsuits, extended warranty coverage etc). I think it is about to end so contact Acer ASAP and be a squeeky wheel.

EDIT: Maybe not. It seems the 7000m is a 90nm chip, the NVidia coverage was for 65 and 55nm only. Still can't hurt to contact Acer and see if it is covered.

This post has been edited by dpunisher: 10 March 2011 - 12:04 AM

thanks for the advice guys, I hadn't considered the drivers as I didn't know they could have an effect like this. I'll try Nvidia for new ones and let you know how I get on. Thanks also for the 'approach Acer' advice too, I will try that if the first option fails to solve the problem. And thanks for the quick replies, it's appreciated.

Here is a quick link to nVidia's driver download page.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Choose option 2 auto detect your hardware, allow it to install the activeX DLM control and it will find your driver based on your hardware.

Bruce.

Hi all,
I tried the advice given about the driver, thanks dpunisher and MrBruce1959, and I'm happy to report that reinstalling the nvidia driver did the job, and graphics are now back to normal. Your help has made a hard job easy, thank you.

borzio, on 14 March 2011 - 02:12 PM, said:

You're most welcome, that is what we are here for!

Happy computing!

Bruce.