I've been having issues with the LCD backlight on my laptop. Most of the time I work plugged into a docking station, but when I'm not, recently the backlight sometimes hasn't been turning on. The issue has been intermittent, normally occurring when the system is restarting when still hot after previously running. Today I'm travelling and it's not coming on at all. Thankfully I've found a way to link up to an external screen where I'm staying.
When I run diagnostics in BIOS I get the error '2000-0322 LCD panel unable to modify brightness'. The only place I can find this message is on this Alienware page that suggests flashing the BIOS: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN116413/EN
That fits with my feeling that this may be a driver issue. The backlight works OK on startup, and in safe mode, it's only after Windows starts that it goes black.
However, that gets me to a new sub-problem. I've tried updating the BIOS from A06 (dated 20/11/2010) to E6510A16.exe. When I click on the executable it restarts my computer but I still have the same backlight issue, plus when I check the BIOS it still says A06.
There is also evidence that it might be hardware-related. When the computer turns off after having backlight issues I get the LED light codes for an LCD Screen Fault, with the number lock and scroll lock flashing and caps lock steadily on. It might be sensible to try reseating the LCD cable to see if that's the issue, but I need to wait until I get home to try that. In the meantime, I struggle with the idea that this is the problem when the backlight is on in startup and safe mode, so I'd like to start by installing the new BIOS.
Can anyone please help me resolve this extremely frustrating issue? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.