Mistaken I was, in blaming Lubuntu 14.04 for my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, for a very dim screen. It was so dim that I could barely see large white windows. I thought it was a Lubuntu 14.04 software problem, so I kept digging for answers, and receiving nothing but frustration and disappointment. Near 6 months later, I figured out that the laptop’s backlight was defective. Once replaced the screen lit up as normal.
I guess that for me, hardware failures, especially lcd screens, are very rare. Yes I have a couple of dead lcd monitors, and yes, I have taken them apart for kicks, but I’ve never had a dead laptop screen. For this old Dell Inspiron 6000, circa 2005, I had to add a secondary LCD monitor in order to view the screen.
So, in error, I blamed Lubuntu. I searched for 6 months for a solution to my dim screen. There are credible reports of dim screens as a result of installing Ubuntu, with varying results for various people. Blame was layed on light-locker, the solution being xscreensaver. Of course I tried them all and none worked. I then decided to do a fresh install of Lubuntu, which surprisingly, to me, did nothing different. I went through many solutions, installing and then uninstalling various packages. If others had some success, then why not me.
Then for some reason, in a Google search, the topic of laptop backlights and lcd inverters came up. The backlight is a very thin but very bright light bulb that, with lots of power, lights up your whole screen. A Youtube video on how to test your laptop inverter got me thinking. All it required was a second lcd screen of any type. I happened to have an old Dell laptop with a cracked screen. I removed the screen and plugged it into my Dell 6000. Lo and behold, the cracked screen lit up, as normal. This showed me that my lcd inverter was functional and that my backlight was defective.
So where can I get a replacement backlight? Well, from the cracked screen, of course. Since the screen is cracked and cannot be used I might as well disassemble it and try to remove the backlight. After more than a few Youtube videos I carefully disassembled the cracked screen, removing all screws and pieces, until I could see the backlight. The backlight looks like a miniature florescent tube, with a wire at each end. These two wires terminate with a standard connector. The backlight is fragile and is usually protected by an aluminum cover. Though tedious, with some care, removal of the backlight was not so difficult, and took about 30 minutes.
The next step was to remove the backlight from my Dell Inspiron 6000, the laptop that I just received the reinstalled Lubuntu. Again, taking apart the screen was not too difficult but was tedious. Putting everything back together was more time consuming. Once I plugged in the backlight and buttoned up everything, I powered up the Dell 6000 and the screen came back to life.
I apologize to Lubuntu and Ubuntu in general, for thinking evil thoughts. It was not you, but me. Now I have a 10 year old laptop with 1G ram that runs Lubuntu really quickly, with an extended screen. It is really a pleasure to use. This old Dell 6000 is 10 years old and really does not owe anyone anything. Lubuntu and a spare laptop screen brought it back to life. Functionally it works very well and is plenty fast for most surfing, word processing and mainstream computing. What more can you ask from a 10 year old laptop? Kudos to Lubuntu and Ubuntu!
