MacBook backlight only works on lowest brightness

I turned my macbook on yesterday and the screen lost it's brightness and i could see the screen working at the setting lower than 1 on brightness although the brightness control said it had full brightness.

Now the laptop only works at setting 1 of brightness and will still randomly die, i have to power the brightness right down and then turn it back up to 1, any further and it dies instantly and sometimes it just flashes to full brightness and dies.

What is going on? Laptop hasn't been dropped or damaged in any way, really annoying!

Sounds like the screen backlight is dying. How old is the MacBook and do you still have AppleCare?

unfortunately no applecare and the macbook is mid-2009, any idea on what i should do? no apple store is very near to me and im not particularly savvy when it comes to taking the laptop apart either?

is there a fix and how much am i looking at?

isnt that one LED? Id find it hard to believe that a LED would of died, especially several of them...

If its the same as on regular LCDs Id bet there is a leaky capacitor somewhere....