The screen is dead, or at least unviewable. You can almost see the white things, but really, it's so dim you can't see much. I've got it hooked up to our old 13 inch monitor at the moment to back up things to Shawn's computer so we can send it in. It's a slow, slow process over wireless. Luckily it's still under warranty. I thought it wasn't when we bought our cord, and now I'm kicking myself for that $80 we didn't need to spend. Ugh.

Anyway, the problem seems to be with the button that works not unlike the refrigerator door - it dims the screen when you close the laptop. Originally when it started intermittently dimming, if I pressed that button several times it'd flicker and come back on. Since I still have power issues (where it's plugged in but I still have to plug and unplug to get it to recognize the fact), and both the cord and the button are in the same area, I'm betting it's the same motherboard issue the computer's had since we bought it. We'll see. Thank goodness for warranties.