Are you stating that while at MicroCenter connected to an external display, you had a reliable backlight, and you did not see it go out once in that situation?
If so, I'd reset the PRAM and PMU/SMC. If that doesn't help, next I'd probably suspect the topcase/keyboard, since these have a surprising amount of electronics in them and are sometimes related to various weird issues, including sleep mode problems. Assuming your board is an 820-2279-A, you can take the topcase off completely and power on the machine by bridging the power-on pads with tweezers to start the machine...these are right above the optical drive connector, and you'll see a small power symbol next to them. Starting it up without the topcase will tell you if the topcase is faulty (if you have a backlight, it's bad).
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At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on under normal conditions, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
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At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what
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you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on under normal conditions, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it as you suggest, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
Are you stating that while at MicroCenter connected to an external display, you had a reliable backlight, and you did not see it go out once in that situation?
If so, I'd reset the PRAM and PMU/SMC. If that doesn't help, next I'd probably suspect the topcase/keyboard, since these have a surprising amount of electronics in them and are sometimes related to various weird issues, including sleep mode problems. Assuming your board is an 820-2279-A, you can take the topcase off completely and power on the machine by bridging the power-on pads with tweezers to start the machine...these are right above the optical drive connector, and you'll see a small power symbol next to them. Starting it up without the topcase will tell you if the topcase is faulty (if you have a backlight, it's bad).
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on under normal conditions, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
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If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
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If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it as you suggest, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
Are you stating that while at MicroCenter connected to an external display, you had a reliable backlight, and you did not see it go out once in that situation?
If so, I'd reset the PRAM and PMU/SMC. If that doesn't help, next I'd probably suspect the topcase/keyboard, since these have a surprising amount of electronics in them and are sometimes related to various weird issues, including sleep mode problems. Assuming your board is an 820-2279-A, you can take the topcase off completely and power on the machine by bridging the power-on pads with tweezers to start the machine...these are right above the optical drive connector, and you'll see a small power symbol next to them. Starting it up without the topcase will tell you if the topcase is faulty (if you have a backlight, it's bad).
-
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
+
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on under normal conditions, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
Are you stating that while at MicroCenter connected to an external display, you had a reliable backlight, and you did not see it go out once in that situation?
If so, I'd reset the PRAM and PMU/SMC. If that doesn't help, next I'd probably suspect the topcase/keyboard, since these have a surprising amount of electronics in them and are sometimes related to various weird issues, including sleep mode problems. Assuming your board is an 820-2279-A, you can take the topcase off completely and power on the machine by bridging the power-on pads with tweezers to start the machine...these are right above the optical drive connector, and you'll see a small power symbol next to them. Starting it up without the topcase will tell you if the topcase is faulty (if you have a backlight, it's bad).
-
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, although hopefully not.
+
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, because they have a lot to do with the backlight as well. I'd say you might have bought a bad replacement inverter cable (inverters themselves almost never fail), but then again the backlight working 100% with an external monitor attached would tend to rule that and most other things out, since it works fine in a specific situation.
If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
Are you stating that while at MicroCenter connected to an external display, you had a reliable backlight, and you did not see it go out once in that situation?
If so, I'd reset the PRAM and PMU/SMC. If that doesn't help, next I'd probably suspect the topcase/keyboard, since these have a surprising amount of electronics in them and are sometimes related to various weird issues, including sleep mode problems. Assuming your board is an 820-2279-A, you can take the topcase off completely and power on the machine by bridging the power-on pads with tweezers to start the machine...these are right above the optical drive connector, and you'll see a small power symbol next to them. Starting it up without the topcase will tell you if the topcase is faulty (if you have a backlight, it's bad).
At the end of the day A1181 backlight issues are usually due to bad screens, but what you saw when connecting to the external display makes me suspect there is something failing to tell the backlight to turn on, such as a misplaced or missing magnet in the screen frame. Maybe Lemerise would have an idea as to what that could be specifically. There should be a magnet in the middle of the left side of the screen frame. It could even end up being the board itself, although hopefully not.
If all of the above fails, I would then proceed to change the screen itself. You can swap the entire assembly with screen inside it, but if it works you won't know whether it was the screen, or some other component in the screen assembly. I guess it doesn't really matter though, if you end up with a working computer. If you buy the whole assembly, just make sure to get one with a 3-wall inverter cable (again, assuming your board is an 820-2279-A).
Good luck!