Main iMac display blacklight turning off, inverter issue?
Recently, my hard drive failed on me. So I went and bought a new hard drive which was DOA (irrelevant but hey), and came with a failed S.M.A.R.T. test. So I then sent it back and went to finding a new drive - this is when I first got the issue.
The iMac's display backlight turned off, randomly, while in use. It happened once or twice in a week. It came time to replace the hard drive again with a new one (and it still works alright!) and the screen issues went away for a little while.. then started to happen more and more frequently. Now it happens constantly to the point where the screen is unusable most of the time (although I do get some lucky periods of OK use).
I know it's the backlight as a second screen works alright, and if I hold a torch up to the screen I can make out what's open on the screen.
It's quite annoying but after researching on the internet I've read that it may be an inverter / inverter cable issue? I had a look and there seemed to be a small cut in one of the cables, but it didn't look deep enough to have done any damage (i.e. maybe just the coating). I'm not looking at spending *too* much as I'm going to replace this machine in the summer, but any advice on how to fix the issue for now would be appreciated.
tl;dr: broken display backlight, what are the different things that could be at fault
Also: Is it worth me taking it down to the Apple store? Would they be able to work out the exact part that's at fault or just try and replace the entire display?
Thanks!
Is this a good question?