T i m wrote:

Hi All,

I have just been given a Dell Inspiron laptop that has a faulty
display.

When turned on you see the Dell BIOS at half brightness and mainly on
but flashing off and then you see the XP splash screen that then
flashes off more often about till the desktop loads (when the screen
randomly goes bright / dark (as sometimes actually looks ok for a few
secs).

After a couple of mins the screen goes completely dark but images can
still be made out with a bright light.

On the odd moments when screen goes 'normal' it looks like it is lit
from both sides but where one side is brighter than the other (if that
makes sense)?

So, from the above could anyone guess if it's *likely* to be the
inverter or the backlight(s) (the video is ok to an external monitor)
or anything else please (and / or is this a common fault on this
model).

All the best .. and thanks for your time in any case ..

T i m (UK)

There are several Inspiron models... But....

It sounds like there may be one inverter circuit and two backlight
bulbs. The side that is not as bright when it works probably is the
defective bulb, but it would be best to replace both, since they are
likely to be the same age with the same amount of usage.

If that doesn't solve the problem, the inverter might also be defective.
Replace it and you're all set.