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Here are our choices:
-Hewlett-Packard
-Microsoft Windows Vista
-Best Buy’s Geek Squad
-myself
-mysterious parts within laptop that are not made by any of the above said

I have a technological problem I can’t shake. My laptop (HP pavilion dv9628nr)’s screen will blackout seemingly at random. It can happen at startup, when I open it after I just closed it, when I open it after it’s been closed for a time, when I shift my weight, when I move the screen, and sometimes it just goes out while it’s sitting there. This blackout is sometimes only the backlight, but it has also had no information on the screen. What’s the deal?

At the beginning of June New Laptop was taken to the Best Buy in Champaign, where it was purchased in October of 2007. New Laptop was sent away to be looked at by the mystery guys at the mystery location. The issues at hand: screen blacks out, audio output is finicky and will play either the left or right side, not both, and the webcam works intermittently. Four weeks later, it got returned with a clean bill of health: the mystery team could not find anything wrong. It may be an intermittent problem, which sucks becasue the team didn’t see it happen, but at least it’s not happening now! Okay great. I get it, turn it on, and the screen blacks out after I log in. Cooooool. I go back to Best Buy to explain the situation to quite possibly the coolest guy working there, Norm. I like Norm a lot. If you see him, he is the guy you want to talk to. He wrote out a letter describing the screen blackout, complete with old case number, new case number, what he had seen, and what he recommended to check. He put out a special speed-up request in addition to my rush-because-you-guys-fucked-up thing. Two weeks go by and my laptop has new LCD wires. Huzzah! The dude that handed New Laptop back to me said he had a similar problem that was somehow connected to putting his laptop to sleep often.

I use the sleep function when I’m going to be moving around with the laptop in a bag for a short time. Rather than dealing with a slow shutdown and startup, it’s quick and wonderful and holds onto the programs I had open. Unfortunately, the screen doesn’t like it. I have no idea why. So, I do as the kid says and don’t put New Laptop to sleep anymore. Kind of annoying, but the screen only went out once and a while and would come back on after fiddling with the screen’s angle. The laptop had been going to sleep when I would leave it alone, and the problem is back again. I talked to other people with similar models that look the same, and they have not had this problem. There’s been a problem of it not turning on, or screen slowly fading to black then having no information, but not the screen blacking out like a little bitch.

So.

What’s going on? Somebody tell me! I’ve been looking around the internets, albeit not intensely. It’s hard when you lose the screen after being on for ten minutes. As of yet a solution other than getting a new laptop has not been found. I do have a warranty with Best Buy.

THE SUSPECTS

Mysterious Parts
They aren’t by HP, and other than the LCD cables, they have not been replaced. Are they frying easily? Is this a ventilation issue? IS IT THE UNRESOLVED FAN ISSUE HP SEEMS TO HAVE?

Myself
Do I really treat my window to the rest of the world like crap? It is a huge ass 17″ widescreen that I smush into my leather messenger bag. I love the number pad. It’s important.

Best Buy’s Geek Squad
Are the mystery guys being bitches and just not looking at every possible angle? They probably think I’m an ignorant idiot with little idea as to the lack of complexity of computer innards. Innards that I can’t screw with myself because I got that cool warranty that takes away my laptop for many weeks at a time to not fix things.

Microsoft’s Vista
Everybody else is hating on it, maybe I should, too. By the way: needing more than one gigabyte of RAM to do anything fun is BOGUS.

Hewlett-Packard
Thanks for the shitty product.