My backlight quit working!

Hallo,

I was typing along a few minutes ago when my keyboard backlight completely stopped working. I have a brand-new (3 days old) 15" Powerbook.
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I have reset the PRAM and PMU, I've verified (about twenty times) that the keyboard backlight setting is on in preferences, and I've taken the machine into a completely pitch-black room. Nothing. The screen dims as its supposed to, but the keyboard light simply won't come on. It just kind of quit while I was waiting for a page to load. I've rebooted the machine, tried logging into a different user account, and repaired permissions, nothing seems to be working.

F8-F10 give me screens showing that I'm ostensibly adjusting the keyboard brightness, but again, the light stays stubbornly off.

I'm running OSX 10.4.2.

Any ideas?

Well, you seem to have done everything I would have normally suggested...I'd give apple a call about it, or take it to an apple store if there's one near you...

Argh.

I was afraid of that. I'm in Juneau, Alaska so there's no Apple Store anywhere within a reasonable distance. We have an Apple Authorized Reseller, but the last time I had to deal with them it was quite a long time before I got my stuff back. I'm rather hoping this turns out to be a software bug...

Thanks, though! Will post what Apple says.

make sure your room lights aren't to bright

As I said, it does it in a completely dark room, where there are no lights whatsoever. For example, my bathroom, which has no windows and no skylight, with the door closed and the light off. Also, the backlight worked just fine until it...well...quit.

Thanks, though.

EDIT/UPDATE: Apple thinks I have a bum keyboard module. This means that I get to mail it back to Apple - since I live in Alaska, this will take about four days - wait for them to fix it - about a week - then have them mail it back - which will take four to eighteen days, depending on how lazy/dishonest my local courier wants to be.

ARGH!

- Aeon

I had almost the same thing happen to me the day after I got my 17" powerbook. My backlight didnt go out, my entire keyboard and trackpad just went out. So I wouldnt worry too much about having problems after you get it back from apple. I live in Oklahoma City and it got shipped to Houston, TX to get fixed so from the time I called to when I had my powerbook back in my hands was 5 days. Im sure itll take a little longer since you live in Alaska, but I dont think itll take 18 days or whatever. Good luck though.

Thanks! I was beginning to think that I was the only person that had ever had this problem.

I've dealt with Apple's support before (I fragged my iPod pretty good while it was under AppleCare) and I find their service to be spectacular. They ship everything DHL next-day and work as fast as they can. I'm really just kind of bummed because even with DHL, "next-day-air" means "around four days" when you're speaking Alaska Shipping Times. I honestly don't understand why this is, Anchorage Airport is one of the busiest on the West Coast last I checked...

Also, DHL doesn't actually deliver to Juneau (where I live). They contract out to a company called Juneau Courier - I use their name because I don't like them - who appear to deliver whenever they feel like it, not necessarily holding to any "estimated delivery date." There are no other courier companies in town, so DHL's kind of stuck.

But thanks. You've made me feel a bit better - it's nice to know that I'm completely alone!

Yea when I first made a post about my powerbook not working I felt like an idiot. I was just thinking, "great im probably the only person here having trouble" but come to find out there were a lot more people that had problems than I thought. Plus I talked to an applecare guy on the phone for a good 30 minutes about my computer and it made everything a little easier.

Bumpitty bump bump.

Apple magically got my return box to me in two days! I'm pretty impressed. I sent the package off and according to the DHL site, it ought to be arriving in Houston today for Apple's minstrations. In the interim time, my video subsystem seems to have gone wonky, too - called Apple and let them know about it. My preferred method of supporting this issue would have been a straight exchange of the machine (considering it was all but an out-of-box failure) but hey, we can't all get what we want, right?

Cheers!

Darth_Sandwich said:

Bumpitty bump bump.

Apple magically got my return box to me in two days! I'm pretty impressed. I sent the package off and according to the DHL site, it ought to be arriving in Houston today for Apple's minstrations. In the interim time, my video subsystem seems to have gone wonky, too - called Apple and let them know about it. My preferred method of supporting this issue would have been a straight exchange of the machine (considering it was all but an out-of-box failure) but hey, we can't all get what we want, right?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

This seems incredibly stupid to me. Why wouldn't they sent it to a repair facility in British Columbia or North West U.S instead?

Maybe they don't have repair centres there?

In europe at least, everything used to go to the netherlands... (although I think the service contractor there has gone bust).
Funny thing about it is that apple support is located in Ireland, so you get german spoken with Irish accents (when I call from Germany - we end up switching to english...) arranging to ship things to and from the Netherlands...

Aaah good 'ol Globalisation!

Aptmunich said:

Maybe they don't have repair centres there?

In europe at least, everything used to go to the netherlands... (although I think the service contractor there has gone bust).
Funny thing about it is that apple support is located in Ireland, so you get german spoken with Irish accents (when I call from Germany - we end up switching to english...) arranging to ship things to and from the Netherlands...

Aaah good 'ol Globalisation!

Click to expand...

There are authorized repair centres everywhere. Private companies with authorized repair facilities. Oh well, its their money.

I can't answer that question, either - but the Authorized Repair Station in Juneau quit doing that a couple of weeks ago - and with no road into town, it's a job of flying (or boating) my Powerbook to wherever it needs to go. If they want to ship it to Texas on their dime, more power to them - all I want is *actual* next-day-air to the Last Frontier.

Darth_Sandwich said:

I can't answer that question, either - but the Authorized Repair Station in Juneau quit doing that a couple of weeks ago - and with no road into town, it's a job of flying (or boating) my Powerbook to wherever it needs to go. If they want to ship it to Texas on their dime, more power to them - all I want is *actual* next-day-air to the Last Frontier.

Click to expand...

They will ship you a box, and you will put it in the box and the next day it will be in Huston, TX. However, since your computer was less than 30 days old when it broke, you are eligible for a DOA (dead on arrival) service, where they will ship you a brand new computer.

But in any case, you won't have to drive the computer anywhere as long as you get mail at your house.

Oleg