Backlight problem

[skipsandwichdx]

Occasionally my CD Macbook's backlight won't work after waking up from sleep. It happened once a few days ago: I took it out, the backlight didn't work after adjusting it via F1-F2, so I restarted and it worked again.

Today, after an exceptionally rough landing on my desk (in a bag, of course), I took it out to make sure there was no damage. Again, the backlight didn't turn on. I restarted, but put it in my bag to deal with after class. When I reached in an hour later, the bag was roughly the temperature of the sun and the screen was blank.

Anyway, it worked after another restart. Anyone else have this happening? Is it a result of a firmware update, or perhaps beause I'm treating it too roughly?

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't know to what extent the roughness issue plays a role, but your Mac crashed the last time -- sometimes when there is a kernel panic on a sleeping Mac notebook, when it gives you the kernel panic screen, the backlight does not come on. But I think that your issue is more likely to be kernel panics than a backlight problem. You can check this by looking at the panic.log file....

If I'm right, then the issue becomes what hardware or software *is* at fault... you might try unseating and re-seating extra RAM. Or else just take it in and make them deal with it.

 

[rolla88]

backlight

Hey
this is sort of related.
I am also having problems with the backlight on my macbook.
I have not dropped it or anything and it's never been out of the house, I have had it for about 8 months and a couple of months ago it started to do about the same thing you have been talking about.
I'll turn it on and the backlight will be on and stay on until it has loaded up and is on my desktop and then it suddenly goes off and won't work. I then usually restart it and generally it is alright. But a couple of weeks ago I turned it on and it wasn't working so I did the usual and it took three goes of restarting it to get it to work again.
I rang apple and they said that it was probably a software problem and the only way that they could fix it would cost me about $400- $500 AUD. He advised me to buy the applecare protection plan, as my warranty does not cover software and I only had the complimentary 90 day applecare protection, and I really do not have that kind of money just lying about at the moment (Ahh cars, keep you broke!).
Anyway he told me to insert the install disc and run a hardware test on start up to ensure that it wasn't the hardware. Which it wasn't. So I was just wondering, are there any software updates available that can fix this problem? Or should I just reinstall all the software?
Thanks
Kylie
(kylie_barling88@yahoo.com.au)

 

[Bebelier]

This probably works

I just quoting an other member solution that is working just perfect in mine.

" Jmacman78
macrumors newbie

Join Date: Jan 2007

The keyboard illumination does seem a bit flaky sometimes.
I got a program called Lab Tick http://labtick.proculo.de/
That way you can control the illumination of the keyboard yourself.
It works great."

An is true it works perfect.