so my 17" fp imac has had a dim screen ever since maybe 2 days after I brought it home from school. It was driving me nuts because I was afraid that the backlight had died prematurely. Just as I was about to post in one of the troubleshooting forums my cat jumped on my desk as he has a tendency to do and started walking around... Turns out that F14 is in a perfect spot for him to step over the keyboard and he has ben standing on it, dimming my monitor, when I am not around. I thought someone might appreciate how stupid I would have looked posting to troubleshooting like it was a real problem only to realize it was the cat.