Screen black, backlight on, external on

Hi,
So I've been reading a similar forum only mine is slightly different. I have it hooked up to a 19" external display, and that works fine. The problem is when I disconnect from the display and use it as a laptop. Everything would be fine for some time (varies, between 5-20 minutes. Let's just say a random interval) and then all of the sudden the screen would go black. Backlight is still on though, and you can control the backlight. Caps lock and num lock keys light too. Processes going on. Just a dead screen. It comes back to life once in a while. But once in a while ain't gonna cut it for a $2000 computer, as we all know.
I have a university computer store I could take this too so I guess I'll have them look at any hardware issues. Meanwhile, could I do anything in terms of software fixes?
Toppo

Oh and one more thing I just found out: when I open the lid when it' on an external display, the screen is again black with only the backlight on. But then when I go to the display menus and click "detect display" the display on the macbook pro comes back to life for a little bit (again, varying for up to 5 minutes or so)
does this give a clue to anything? I realized that the display issue has been an ongoing thing for macbook pros ever since the update to 10.5.1.

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