Early 2008 iMac backlight is dimming

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Level 1

31 points

Early 2008 iMac backlight is dimming

Hello, I've noticed that my iMac's brightness has become significantly dimmer in the past couple months. It was especially evident when I bought a new 24" monitor to accompany it (that monitor's brightness isn't cranked up either, it's at 50%, and the iMac is still a lot dimmer than it). I have my brightness up all the way, as opposed to when I first bought the iMac and kept the brightness around the 50% mark. I noticed the dimming before I bought the other monitor, so I don't think the change is in my head.

I was wondering what options I have in this scenario.

Thanks!

24" iMac 2.8 GHz 2 TB HD 4GB RAM 6 MB L2 cache, Mac OS X (10.6.4),  Designed By Apple in Cupertino California 

Posted on Feb 24, 2012 4:13 PM

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Answer 1

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a brody

Level 10

82,941 points

Feb 24, 2012 4:46 PM in response to funman895

Not many. It is obviously out of warranty. http://www.dttservice.com/ might fix it cheaper than Apple. You might find directions on http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ or http://www.ifixit.com/ to do it yourself. One thing it might also be, the PRAM battery sometimes starts dying at around 4 years, and many other system settings seem t be related to that. I've not seen brightness be an issue, but it could be.

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Answer 2

Feb 24, 2012 4:49 PM in response to a brody

Good answere, but i would definatly not try it on your own, because you might be static laoded and could kill the computer by just touching 1 piece on the inner side.

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Answer 3

funman895 Author

Level 1

31 points

Feb 26, 2012 5:13 PM in response to a brody

After reading up a bit more, I don't think the problem is serious enough to merit the work to try and fix it. If one part of my screen just goes completely dim, or the entire backlight fails, then I'll try to fix it, but right now I can't conclusively say that it's broken.

As for the PRAM, I haven't noticed any symptoms that the battery is failing, but I will keep those symptoms in mind in the future when the battery eventually does fail.

Thank you very much!

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