backlight blown on grx 570

I have been running linux on my laptop on the grx570 for over a year.  Purchased in April of 2002.

I just upgraded it to 9.x about a month ago.  A Couple of days ago, when I came home, my screen on my laptop was black.
Closer inspection showed that it wasn't really black, just very very dark.
So I paid to call tech support, they walked me thru a bunch of things with no success.

I did not have time to ship it back for repair, so I went shopping.  I ended up with a GRV680, so I can still use all my accessories including second drives, port replicator, and floppy.


Costs of repair are estimated at $700.00 for a new screen, plus shipping and labor.
Costs to replace with a referbrished unit is around $1500.00.
Cost to replace with a new GRV unit $2400.00.

So the answer for me on the lifetime of a laptop was just over a year.  Understand that my laptop gets extremely heavy use.  My keys were just about worn off from the use, and I have a tendancy to keep it on for days at a time on my desktop.

The good news is the GRV with the linux drive just came right up and reconfigured a few things and now appears to be working for the most part.  (I still need to check wireless/pcmcia cards).  It does have a slightly lower resolution screen, but still 16.0 inches big.

If there are any questions about this, please feel free to email me.

Ted Serreyn