I seem to have pressed some kind of deadly key combination that has completely disabled my display's backlight. The screen is barely readable and none of the normal brightness buttons or sliders are having any effect.
I would definately call Apple Care and have this issue addressed, after all the machine comes with 90 days free phone support - use it! I hope things work out well for you.
If the usual function keys to control brightness don't work, try holding down the fn key and try the usual functions key again with the fn key held down.
I will definitely be giving them a phone call tomorrow as I cannot be certain the backlight was turned off from a key combination...it could be something else entirely.
Also, the function keys did not work.
Thanks again for your help and I will update the thread with Apple's response tomorrow.
I work for a small school. A teacher here bought a MacBook three days ago and has had three incidences of her backlight lamp appearing to die. When the book was opened and the power on, the screen was just barely visible and it looked the same way as the older iBooks I've seen with dead backlights. However, it seems to be a problem with the computer's "sleep on shut" setting. That is, when she goes to shut her MacBook after choosing "Shut Down" from the apple menu, she may be shutting it before the computer has entirely turned off, thus tripping the Sleep feature. When she goes to open the computer after this, the backlight doesn't come on even though the computer is still on, and so it looks like the backlight is dead.
I was actually able to temporarily fix this by navigating the dark screen to the apple menu, choosing "Shut Down", allowing the computer to power off, then powering it back on with the power button
and with an external display connected to the MacBook's external display adapter
. The backlight suddenly came back on, and the desktop was visible both on the MacBook and on the external display.
However, the problem has happened again since then, and short of hooking it up to an external display the only way to get it working again is to turn it off and on a couple times until it decides to start working again. Apparently this is happening even when she shuts it down correctly and lets the computer fully power off before shutting the case. It's frustrating, and definitely a problem apple should address if other people are experiencing it, as well.
You can tell a functional MacBook to shut down without needing the screen. Just press the power button and then press the return or enter key. In a bit, it will power off if there are no unsaved documents. I was surprised that the screen is readable without a backlight so you might be able to click yes or know you need to press enter to save changes.
I thought AppleCare was open at night.....
G5 2.3DP & PMac G4 533DP & iBook 600 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
Just to update everyone, the Apple Care representative had me run through a few tests (including booting from the CD) and came to the conclusion that it was actually a hardware problem.
The representative told me that their engineers did not want to hold on to my machine so it will be repaired and returned (hopefully).
I've had the same problem, twice within a few minutes. My MacBook went dim while I was writing an email, so I closed it, reopened it and hit the power button, then the screen lit up again and I saw I had launched the "Do you want to shut down?" dialog box. So I clicked CANCEL and continued writing. Both times I could tell that the computer was still on, and I could just barely see my desktop, only very dimly. Scary stuff!
Chalk up one more; this happened to me the other day. The machine was asleep and when my wife opened it, it came up with no backlight. Squinting and carefully navigating to shut down via the apple menu got it working when I started back up.
Ditto that. In my case, this occurs whenever the screen is nudged. It's definitely a hardware thing, because it happens in Vista too. However, sleeping it brings the light back. I've had the MacBook for almost a month, and this only started a few days ago. The screen hasn't taken any trauma recently that I'm aware of. It is pretty annoying, because I can't hand it off to anyone or handle it without the screen dying. I plan on taking it to the nearest Apple store sometime soon. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone -- it's starting to stain as well :[
Today I've had the display randomly go dark twice. Once was waking it up from sleep mode; about 10 seconds later the screen went very dark/dim so that I could just barely make out the windows I had open. The second time, was just a few minutes ago when the screen again went dark just as I was adjusting the angle of the display on my Macbook.
Each time, I hit the space bar and played with the trackpad for a bit and the screen eventually came back. But it clearly wasn't asleep because I could see the display very faintly.
I'm disturbed that this happens and how randomly it happens. And my Macbook is only 3 weeks old (barely!)
