Trouble with laptop screen

Hello, I recently had this problem with my laptop screen. I have an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop.
One day, i was working on a paper, and all of a sudden, the scren went blank. I thought the screen broke, but upon closer inspection, the backlight was just off, the LCD itself still worked. I kept trying to press the fn and f6 key (the key combo that turns on and off the laptop screen), but all i get is a small part of the screen lighting up, and then immediately going dark again.
However, sometimes, when i take the computer out of standby, the screen works perfectly, but it then turns off again after a few seconds or whenever i click something or move the mouse.
I hooked up a desktop monitor to the laptop, and everything works fine.
I usually put my laptop on standby by closing the lid.
The laptop is about 2-3 years old, I purchased it back in November of 2006.
I searched some forums and I think there is a problem with the inverter or the backlight blowing out, but really I am not sure. In those forums, people only talk about their screen being dark. My screen does not completely stop functioning, it just flickers on for a moment and then turns off again when i press the fn and f6 key combo to try and turn it on.

If anyone could help me, it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I opened up my laptop and i checked the wires. The wires appeared to be in good condition, bit i really could not tell. There was this fabric/nylon binding that covered them (should i take them off to check?), but I checked the connections. They were pretty firm. I could only do surface checks, I was not able to completelly open the case. However, on the chip that houses the power switch, i see some black material all over the chip (pic is attached). Could this cause my laptop screen problem?