Acer Travelmate 8104, battery or setting issue?

I own a Travelmate 8104 and I've had it about a year. Its a great laptop but lately its been acting really strange. If i pull out the power source and have it run on battery the lcd turns off while the actual laptop is still running. Anything i try when the screen is black from using the mouse, keyboard or the lcd shut off button has no effect. The only way i can have the laptop working is if i plug the power back in and force shut down + turn on. At first i panicked and thought it was a faulty battery but i discovered that if my laptop is hibernating i can pull the plug and turn on the laptop and it will function on battery mode normally. I can even restart or shut down the laptop under those circumstance and the lcd will function fine. I went through my power management settings as well as BIOS to see if it was a setting issue, so far i can't find any setting that i've missed. My lcd is set to never shut off under any circumstance until the battery is dead. I even tried calling acer for guidance and the guys there were struck dumb too. I searched through these forums and found nothing but a review on my laptop..can anyone help?