laptop screen race condition

[gusl]

I've seen this a lot, not just on my laptop: open your laptop, and the screen goes on and off and on and off, etc. There's a lot of variation in how many times this cycle happens (though it's usually between 1 and 3 times), and sometimes it stays off, and I can't figure out how to turn it on again... which means I need to reboot my machine and lose my work.

This happened last week.

Comments

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Hm. I have never seen this before?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I've seen it more often when plugging the laptop into a projector.

[raflacerda.livejournal.com]

It could turn itself off for two reasons:

*It thinks the lid is closed. Try opening and closing it again.
*It thinks it's plugged into another display, so it turned off the default one. Laptops usually have a function key to toggle display modes. Look for a screen icon on your keyboard and combine it with the Fn key.

...Or it's just plain broken.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I tried playing with the lid. I don't reset my machine lightly.
Fn+screen makes my screens flash twice before toggling display modes.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Fn+screen sucks! When I use it I lose my extra screen, and have to go back to Control Panel > Display.