Here are some tips and tricks for troubleshooting and fixing laptop video problems. Video issues are very common within portable computers and with the following tips you should be able to detect and eliminate basic laptop video problems.
Laptop LCD screen has a faint image.
Look at the LCD screen very closely and check if you can see a faint image on the screen. It’s possible that the LCD lid close switch stuck in the “closed” position and the backlight stays off even when you open the LCD screen or turn on the laptop. The switch turns off the backlight when you close the LCD display to save the laptop battery power. Check the LCD lid close switch. Usually it is a small plastic pin located close to the LCD hinges. Try to tap on the switch a few times to turn on the backlight. If after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight stays on, you fixed the problem.
It is also possible that after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight works fine, you see a normal video on the screen for some time and then the backlight turns itself off again. In this case I would blame the FL inverter board. Try to reseat cables on both end of the FL inverter to make a better contact between the cables and the FL inverter board. If it doesn’t help I would try to replace the FL inverter board.
Laptop LCD screen is solid white color.
Most likely it is just a bad connection between the LCD display and the system board. I would try reseating the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen first and check if it fixes the problem. After that I would try reseating the video cable connector on the system board. I would also try reseating cables if there is no video on the LCD screen at all.
The video on the LCD screen is garbled.
Try to connect the LCD screen to an external monitor. If the external video is fine, you have a problem with the LCD screen or the LCD video cable. You can try to fix the problem by reseating the video cable on the back of the LCD and on the system board.
If you see the same garbled video output on the external monitor most likely it is not the LCD screen problem. In this case the system board (with onboard video) is bad or the video card is bad.
I understand that these tips will not cover all video problems with portable computers. If you have a different problem, you are welcome to leave a comment and I will try to help you if I can. 
Are you looking for a new LCD screen for you laptop? Try searching here.
Here’s a notebook display assembly diagram and tips for finding spare notebook parts.
Related articles:
How I took apart and repaired my notebook LCD screen with water damage
Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
February 25th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Thank you SO Much for providing this service. I spend the majority of the afternoon on tech support with Dell with an expired warranty on a 3 and a half month old computer with no backlight. There I was, sitting by the computer using a flashlight in order to read the screen. I was about to spend the fortune to send it to Dell for repair but found your troubleshooting guide it and was… the little thing was stuck down and it was keeping the backlight from coming back on. You just made my day, maybe my month!!! Thank you SO much!
February 27th, 2006 at 9:54 am
I just received Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161 laptop for repair. The laptop problem – completely white screen. It took me 5 minutes to fix the laptop. I removed the LCD mask and two screws from the screen to get to the video cable. The connector on the back of the LCD screen was half-way out. I put the connector back in place and secured it with a sticky tape. After the assembly the laptop started with a good video on the LCD screen.
March 15th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Excellent resource – two questions though.
Do you have a service manual for a Portege 7020?
My Portege 7020 sometimes makes a long beep and blanks the screen. Sometimes at power-on, sometimes after an hour of use. It remans functional (disc etc, boot-up) but the screen goes blank with the long beep sound. If the screen does come back it tends to flicker on and off along with the beeping sound.
I would love to know if a repair is possible or if it is destined for the skip?
With thanks
Damian
March 15th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Hi Damian,
I have not worked on this model but let me guess. It is possible that the LCD lid close switch is causing the problem. The switch is supposed to turn off the backlight when you close the LCD and on some models it makes a beep sound during that. You can find the switch close to the LCD screen hinges and in most cases it looks like a little plastic pin. Check if it’s dirty and try to clean it. Try to tap on it a few times when you LCD screen opened and see if you can reproduce the problem. My guess is that the lid close switch is getting stuck intermittently and causing the backlight to go on and off.
March 16th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Hello again. I found and reseated the cables to the FL Inverter board in my Toshiba Satellite P35 to try and eleviate the faint image problem. This didn’t change anything.
I did notice that the lid close switch, which is NOT stuck in the down position, can be wiggled back and forth. When I do this, there is a flicker of backlight from time to time. How do I repair this switch? Or can I repair this switch?
Thanks again! ~Tiger~
March 16th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Many thanks – I discovered that if I disable the option “to shutdown when I close the lid” and turn off the speaker, the screen just tends to flicker – which like you say is either a loose inverter cable or the inverter itself.
I discovered that I actually have a 7220 so it will be very nice to repair and upgrade the memory – hopefully it will give some extra life
March 16th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Hey Tiger,
I think the switch is fine and you have a bad FL inverter.
When the FL inverter is failing, you can get the backlight for a moment when you tap on the lid close switch. Try to tap on the switch a few times and see if you can get a flashing backlight. If you get the backlight, replace the FL inverter.
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:15 am
Hey! Thanks for such a great website!.
I’ve had my Acer 1710 Inverter broken TWICE, and both times i sent it to the repair center. I decided that I want to change the inverter myself next time. I have read in Internet that is a very common problem on this kind of laptops, so where can i found about changing an inverter? where it is located? how i screw out all the things to remove the broken inverter?
Thank u very much in advance!
March 24th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Hey Giovanni,
I have never worked on Acer laptops, but I repair Toshiba laptops every day. I guess you have to do the same steps for replacing FL inverter on Acer laptops as for Toshiba laptop. I created a few guides for removing and replacing LCD screens and FL inverters for Toshiba laptops. Read through them and I think you will be able to replace the FL inverter board on your Acer notebook yourself. It should not be very difficult.
You will find my instructions here: Toshiba laptop disassembly guides.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I have a screen with no backlightt. However there seems to be no physical switch for the screen as there are on other laptops (mine is a dell inspiron 1150). Also there is now a high pitched buzzing sound.
If there is no easy fix could it be possible to remove the monitor completely. I don’t particually want to do this as at the moment an external monitor will not work outside of windows. Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially with getting an external monitor to work in the BIOS etc.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Hi…
Im trying to repair an Mitsubishi Apricot.. It does not give any display. Tried to reseat the connector but nothin happende, also tried to connect an external monitor the same thing no display…
Is this an indicative of a bad onboard display or motherboard?
March 27th, 2006 at 12:20 am
If you have no internal and external video, most likely it is not the LCD problem. I would check the AC adapter first. Also I would check the memory module. If you cannot boot your laptop with a known good AC adapter and memory, then it is possible that the system board or the video card (not sure if it’s a separate board in your laptop) is bad.
March 27th, 2006 at 4:29 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite 1200. Yesterday, with no prior problems, the display went black. My research landed me here. Thanks to your guides I was able to, maybe a little over cautiously, (or fearfully) reseat the inverter connections. Thank you very much for sharing you wealth of knowledge.
After reassembling the display, I was delighted to find that everything booted normal once again. Sadly, I watched as my efforts vanished into a sea of darkness just after windows explorer started.
It seems that the longer I wait between tests the longer I have a display. I can still , with a lot of effort, see the faint display in the blackness. If anything when the backlight is on I notice a slight pinkish hue on the darker transition screens.
Before I order an inverter I want to be sure that the problem is not some sort of overheating issue or safety shut off for the backlight. I’m probably reading too much into the whole thing. Any insight (or reassurance
you might offer would be greatly appreciated.
Great site….thanks for helping out
March 27th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Hi cj600..
I have checked the AC adapter and have tried using another AC adapter result is the same….
Yes maybe your right I also think that its the board.. Do you know anybody here that might have a copy of a service manual of Mitsubishi Apricot AL?
March 27th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Hey Dustin,
To me your problem doesn’t look like an overheating issue at all. Most likely it is just a failing FL inverter board. Usually you can get the backlight back for a while when you tap a few times on the lid close switch. You can find the switch close to the left LCD hinge. Make sure that the lid close switch is clean. Sometimes it might get stuck, causing the backlight to turn off.
One thing concerns me. You mentioned that you noticed a slight pinkish hue on the screen. It might indicate a problem with the LCD screen. Try to connect your laptop to an external monitor. If you see the same pinkish hue, most likely you have a problem with the video card (it is a separate board in this model). If the external video is fine, then I would suspect the LCD or the video cable connection. In some cases the LCD screen still would be usable because after it warms up the pinkish hue can go away.
By the way, a few days ago I created a guide for taking apart Toshiba Satellite 1200 laptop and opened a discussion for this particular model on my blog.
March 28th, 2006 at 7:56 am
I have a Dell Latitude CPX600 & I see individual pixels sometimes on the screen.A I shut down the sysytem, rows of pacman like characters appear. Upon re-boot, those packman like charactors get super small and appear in several rows when Windows 2000 is booting.
Then the screen goes back to one line of pixels and then to seveveral lines of pixels in any new windoe that opens. And then that whole thing will stop if the system is rebooted (again).
March 28th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Nice site!
I have a laptop here in repair, and I think the videocard is broken(it’s a seperate geforce 5700 go). The laptop displays strange white dots all over the display when booting(on both the screen, and the external video connector), and I don’t think it passes the videobios(on boot). Any tips? I’m thinking of ordering a new videocard for this laptop, do you think this is wise? The laptop is a Acer aspire 1510 series.
Thanks in advance Jules
March 28th, 2006 at 8:38 am
I have a Toshiba A70 and few days back when I start up, I got a black or sometime a flash screen. I try to connect my laptop to a monitor and it’s work fine. I check all cable and all seem to be ok.
Could some help me to solve this problem.
Thanking you
Jeff
March 28th, 2006 at 8:43 am
HI
How to check if the inventer is still good or need to replace?
Jeff
March 28th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Hey Carline,
Connect the laptop to an external monitor. If you see the same pattern of bad lines, the system board or the video card is bad. If the external video is fine, I would suspect the LCD screen.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Hi Julies,
Yep, it looks like a video card problem. If you can, try to reseat the video card first. It might fix the problem. Sometimes the problem occurs because of a bad connection between the video card and the system board.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Hey Jeff,
With a bad FL inverter you still should see some data on the screen. It would be a normal video output but very dim. You should see some data if you look at the screen at different angles. The problem might occur because of a bad FL inverter or a bad connection. There is a possibility that the backlight bulb is dying.
In a case like yours, we usually try to spray connectors with ProGold and reseat the FL inverter. If it doesn’t help we replace the inverter board.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:53 am
HI THERE
I OWN AN ACER ASPIRE 1360 AND EVERY NOW AND THEN MY DISPLAY GOES GARBAGED WITH ALL HORIZONTAL LINES ACROSS THE SCREEN.WHEN THIS HAPPENS I HAVE TO REBOOT MY COMPUTER TO GET THE DISPLAY BACK TO NORMAL.THIS HAPPENS ABOUT ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK OTHERWISE THE PICTURE IS FINE. IS THERE SOME SETTINGS I CAN MAKE IN WINDOWS XP TO CORRECT THIS OR IS THIS A PROBLEM WITH THE VIDEO HARDWARE.
THANKS
March 29th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Hi Paul,
I am pretty sure that is a hardware issue. If you see the same horizontal lines on an external monitor, then the system board or the video card is bad. I am sure if the video card is integrated into the system board or it is a separate board. If the external video works properly, then either the LCD screen itself or the video cable is bad. When you have a garbaged output on the LCD screen you can try to twist the display a little bit (not too much or you can crack it). When you twist it you put some tension on the screen. If during twisting you see that pattern of lines is changing or you get a normal video then most likely the LCD is bad itself. Be very careful with the screen during the test.
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:16 am
hey great help here, i just have a major issue that i cannot fix. toshiba satellite p25-s509 has lit backlight and boots up perfect with an external monitor. I have reseated all the connections and run out of ideas. Do you have any more not suggested here already?
April 3rd, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Hey Simon,
It is not very clear what problem are you experiencing? No image on the screen or something else?
April 4th, 2006 at 7:49 am
yeah im sorry, it works perfect in external and backlight is lit just fine but there are no images (not even faint under flashlight) appearing at all. i have checked close lid switch and all connections.
April 5th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Hi:
My wife’s Toshiba M35X-S161 LCD screen just went black last night. I have jiggled the switch for the backlight as you have suggested here and occaisionaly a faint image would appear, but it disappears pretty much right away. I have since hooked up an external monitor and rebooted the machine, but any image on the external monitor disappears after Windows XP starts to boot up. External monitor then goes blank and then shows a “No Signal” error. Prior to all this happening, the laptop had been running on battery for quite awhile, so the power level was way down. And, now even under AC power the display is blank. But the compter shuts down after a little while. She supposedly had this fixed a year ago under warranty. Could the display problem be a result of a power problem?
April 5th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
I have a Toshiba A75-S229 that has issues with the video. I get the backlight just fine, and I can use an external monitor with no problems. I pulled the cover off of the LCD and all the connections look good. The one thing I did notice is the wires going to the connection on the left side has what I would call a severe bend or kink in the cable. Is there anyway to test the cable? And where would I go to get a replacement cable for this?
Thanks for your help.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Hey Mike,
Usually a power problem will not affect the display. It might be just an FL inverter problem and the faint image is not disappearing, you just cannot see it. You say that the video on the external monitor goes blank after the Windows welcome screen. I’ve seen that before on some Toshiba laptops. I guess you can get a normal video on the external monitor if you pres Fn+F5 a few more times. I think that the system board is OK, and you have a problem somewhere in the display module.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Hi Jeff,
I would try to reseat the video cable on the system board and on the back of the LCD screen first, just in case. If it doesn’t help, I would try to replace the cable.
There are 2 video cables listed for Toshiba Satellite A75-S229 screen.
Toshiba part number for the first one: K000015960
Second one listed as backward compatible with the first one: K000034510
You can try to search on ebay by the part number or just google for it and find a store.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Hi Simon,
If the connections are fine, then I would try to replace the LCD video cable next. It is the cheapest replacement part between the system board and the LCD screen. You have very good chances that the cable will fix your problem.
There are 2 cables listed for Toshiba Satellite P25-S509:
K000005950 for Samsung LCD screens
K000005960 for LG Phillips screens
Check on the back of the LCD screen who made it and try to find this part via ebay or google.
Video cables in Toshiba Satellite P25 are not very reliable. I repaired a lot of P25 laptops with problem like yours just by replacing the cable. But it also possible that the system board or the screen is causing the problem.
April 6th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 and I am experiencing problems with the LCD. A few minutes after the system has booted and the desktop appears, the display goes black. However, you can faintly make out what is on the desktop if you look closely enough. I did attach an external monitor to my laptop and it works fine.
From the posts I have read on other forums, the problem could
be related to the inverter, backlight, or ribbon cable.
I don’t have enough knowledge to know which part(s) needs to be replaced. I would appreciate any insight on how to make this determination.
In addition, I began to disassemble my laptop and have the LCD panel flipped out from the protective casing. I don’t know where these any of these parts are located. If anyone can provide some instructions or diagram resources, this would be appreciated as well.
Thank you for your assistance,
Ted Cwynar
April 6th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Hey Ted,
Here are instructions for Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop.
By the description you provided I would assume that the FL inverter board is causing the problem. Most likely the inverter board fails when it’s getting warm. I think a bad LCD cable would give you an intermittent problem.
I think that it‘s also possible that the backlight bulb is failing itself but I would start with replacing the FL inverter board.
April 7th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
I know very little about the inside of my notebook, so please help me understand what I need to try. It’s a Compaq Presario R3000, and it’s just as you described – very faint screen with no backlight, when I tap rapidly on the lid switch, the backlight will flicker and I can intermittedly see video on the screen. How do you reseat connections or replace inverters? I’m still learning.
Also, we had a problem with our Invidia Graphics causing video distortions and crashes for several days, but those issues amazingly went away – that was only about 3 days prior to the backlight issues, do you think they are related?
April 7th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
WEBB,
If you feel uncomfortable with computers, I wouldn’t get inside. It’s easy to break something.
When you say that you can get backlight back by tapping on the lid switch, I suspect that the problem is caused by the inverter board. I do not have guides for Compaq, but you can find some guides for Toshiba here: http://www.irisvista.com
The process of removing and replacing the FL inverter board would be almost the same.
It’s hard to say why the video crashes. It might be a software problem as well as a hardware problem. I cannot troubleshoot it without seeing the problem itself.
April 7th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Thanks for this awesome website
I have a Toshiba and have the exact same problem you are describing. The display is very faint and when I push on the little hinge button, it beeps and the display flicker. However, I have noticed that if I am on battery (which has a life of 5 mins now) instead of being plugged in – it stays on. I am wondering if I can change some bios settings to fix this? Or is this a FL inverter issue? Or is this a Battery issue?
Thanks so much in advance
April 8th, 2006 at 8:51 am
HI all, surfing the web i’ve found this usefull site. I have a Toshiba Satellite P35 (P35-S6292 17″ LCD) sice 8 months ago. A couple of weeks ago appeared a cyan vertical line on my screen (from top to the bottom). Today a have 3 lines, cyan, red and yellow. A new LCD costs 650$ here in Asuncion Paraguay. Any help will be be very wellcomed. Thanks in advance.
April 8th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Hey Sree,
Very weird problem!
If you would only mentioned only a faint screen I would me almost positive that the FL inverter board has to be replaced. But after you mentioned, that you can get a normal video when you run off the battery, I’m getting lost. I have no idea what’s going on, I think you might have a system board issue. Just in case try to upgrade/reflash BIOS.
April 8th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Hey Guido,
Make sure that it’s the LCD problem first. Connect an external monitor and restart the laptop. If you see the same lines on the external video, then the LCD is fine, the system board is causing the problem. I’m pretty sure it’s just a failing LCD screen but still it would be nice to verify it by connecting the external monitor. In the USA the screen would cost you about the same or even more.
April 8th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Hi all again, this is a picture’s link of my Toshiba Satellite P35-S6292 with 3 colored vertical lines LCD problem
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grolon/125324583/
April 10th, 2006 at 4:14 am
Hi cj2600, i have connected an external montior to notebook, it seems that everything is ok, on that external monitor. This means that system board and video card are ok?.
April 10th, 2006 at 7:29 am
I have a Acer aspire 2002WLCI (centrino 1.5/ATI 9200 32mb on a seperate board). A few weeks ago I started to have problems with the LCD display on the laptop. At first, when I started the computer, the screen showed full brightness white vertical lines on a royal blue background. If I connected an external monitor everything was OK (normal windows login window). If I restarted the computer a few times, the LCD would come back in full working order. After a few weeks, the LCD started showing the the same vertical lines all the time (extenal video still OK) and the LCD went dim. I cannot see the normal windows graphics on the LCD now, just the lines, although if I move the mouse, I can see dim vertical lines moving on the LCD. I would like to repair the unit myself, I have already checked the connections but would like to know what part to change (inverter, graphic card, cable, LCD).
Thanks for the great site.
Jean
April 10th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
hi friends
i have a display problem with my thinkpad t22
i Try to connect the LCD screen to an external monitor,the external video is fine, but the internal monitor (lcd) is white
i change the lcd connection on the mainboard it”s the same problem,i do the same with a new sreen it ’s always white
i want your help to fix this problem
thank you for all
my best
touré
April 10th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Guido,
Your laptop has a video chip integrated into the system board. If an external video is fine, then the system board works properly. I am almost positive that you are having a problem with the LCD screen.
April 10th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Hi Jean,
I am pretty sure it is not the video card, because you still can get a normal video on the external monitor. You would get a bad video output on the external monitor if the video card was bad.
Here is my guess. You have 2 different problems on the screen: vertical lines and lack of the backlight. Normally these two problems are not connected to each other and it is not likely that the LCD screen got 2 different problems at the same time. There is only one part that can cause these problems – the video cable. I would try to replace the LCD video cable first.
If replacing the video cable will not help, the next step would be to replace the LCD screen (of course after you checked all connections) . In most cases buying a new LCD screen wouldn’t be cost effective solution to repair the notebook computer. It would be better to buy a new laptop, unless you can find a way to buy a cheap LCD.
April 10th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Hey Toure,
When I see a white notebook LCD screen I always check the connection between the video cable and the LCD screen first. Most of the time the video cable is half way out and after I reseat it the video is back to normal. You say that you tried to replace the screen and it didn’t help and the external video is fine. So I am pretty sure that you can fix the problem by replacing the video cable.
April 11th, 2006 at 3:29 am
My Dell latitude c600 display only covers half of the screen. The display adapter system shows the default vga driver is in use. I can’t find or load a new driver. Support for the driver should be included in windows-me.
Can you help?
Bob
April 11th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Hi, CJ
I’m so glad to find this blog. Now I’m so depressed because of my computer.
I have Toshiba Tecra S1 laptop and I think it has vedio problem.
It’s started few days ago. When I was using this computer, suddenly something happened on the screen. It seemed to be broken resolution or something trouble with graphic unit. Graphic was broken and suddenly computer was stopped. So I turned it off and turned it on again. Then there was no problem.
But yesterday, when I tried to connect with my external hard drive, it happeded again. So I thought it’s time to format this computer because recently it showed something weird. So I formatted it using recovery CD and installed it succesfully.
I turned it off and then when I turned it on again. on the screen there was nothing I can see. It was just black screen.
When I turned it on, I could hear one beep sound and fan worked. But on the screen it did not show anything.
I think I also heard three times beep sound from inside of computer after booting it. I think this could be vedio unit problem.
Could you give me any advice for repairing this computer? I think I may be able to fix it. But I’ve never opened laptop. If this computer is desktop, it is not a big deal. In my country I used to open and fix some parts.
I bought this computer in my country in 2003. This computer is my best friend ( of course I also have best friend in human ^^). Now I’m so sad…I can not do anything even my homework. :’(
Please help me out…..The cost for repairing is so expensive.
Have a nice day!
April 11th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Hey Robert,
Have you tried to find a new driver on Dell Support Website ? It looks like they have the video driver for Windows Me.
April 11th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Hey Chun,
Toshiba Tecra S1 has a video chip integrated into the system board. So if the onboard video is bad, the entire system board has to be replaced.
Sometimes Toshiba laptop beeps 3 times when you start the laptop without memory sticks. Check your memory modules. If you have 2 memory sticks installed try to remove them one by one and start the laptop. If you have only one memory stick you can try to move it to a different slot. It should be pretty easy because both memory slots are located on the bottom of the laptop. Also it would be nice to find another good memory for test.
Try to connect the laptop to an external monitor. If you cannot get any video on the LCD screen and the external monitor with a good memory installed, then most likely the system board is bad. If the external video is fine and you still have no video on the LCD screen, then the system board is good and the problem is somewhere in the display assembly.
April 12th, 2006 at 5:44 am
After installing a new video driver and deactivating the old driver, the computer restarts but when windows starts up the screen becomes black. How can I reactivate the old driver when I see nothing on the screen?
April 12th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Hi Nicole,
You can try to boot your computer in a safe mode. After that find a display adapter entry in the device manager. Right click on the display adapter and go to Driver tab. Use Roll Back Driver button get back to the previous driver.
April 12th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Thank you for your reply, CJ. I tried to check memory modulus. I think it is not memoey sticks problem. I also tried to connect to external monitor. The result was fine. But what I don’t understand is when I connected my laptop to external monitor, it was fine. I removed external monitor and turned on my computer. At that time it was fine. However after I came back home, it happened again.
What do you think about this?
April 12th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Help! I have a screen with no backlight, images on my screen are really dim. I would like to check if the switch is stuck, however there seems to be no physical switch for the screen as there are on other laptops (mine is a dell inspiron 1150).
I am planning to buy an inverter online and replacing it, am i on the right track?
April 12th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Chun,
I think that it might be just a loose connection. I would try to reseat the cables. It requires some skills because you have to open the laptop case. Not sure 100%.
Try to turn on the laptop and use Fn+F5 key to toggle between the internal and external video output.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Irene,
Most likely a new FL inverter will fix the problem. It also might be a video cable problem or the LCD screen itself is bad. I would suspect the FL inverter first.
April 12th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Hi, CJ.
Today I tried to connect to another external monitor. But it didn’t work. I think I should open this computer. When I turn on the computer, I still hear three times beep sound. One is a little long, and two are shorter than first one. I have no experience to open laptop, but I want to try it.Because I’m a student in electrical engineering in college. I will do it following your explanation in this site. When I open computer, should I also remove memory, hard drive and etc on the bottom? There is 23 steps, right? I think I should check “step 14 in your guide for Tecra S1″. For checking this, which steps should I do? Do I need all steps before step 14? I want to try to fix my computer by myself. I already appreciate you, but if you help me little more, I’m really happy. Please~~
April 12th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Hey Chun,
It’s hard to say what is happening with your laptop. If you want to take the laptop apart completely, then you have to go through all 23 steps. If you only want to check the video cable connection (step 14), then you have to remove the battery (step 1) and the keyboard strip (step 5), you do not need all steps. I do not remember if the keyboard strip is secured by screws on the bottom, be careful when removing.
It’s hard to repair a laptop at home when you do not have any spare/test parts.
Good luck!
April 14th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Hi there,
I have dell latitude c800 (it’s actually my roommates but he just bought a new one) and the screen turns on shortly after startup or not at all. When it does start up there appears to be a reddish hue to the screen for a moment. When the screen works it works fine I don’t suspect the back light. I can’t locate any switch specifically either. You can still see a very faint image on the screen. If there is anymore info you need just ask.
Thanks,
Marlow
April 14th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Would you know what the electrical value on a Pavilion HP laptop inverter should be on the lamp bulb side? It is a pk070012310 inverter in a zt1000 laptop . I would like to check it out before I order a new one . Thank you George
April 15th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Hi George,
I work mostly with Toshiba laptops. For Toshiba laptops the output voltage on the FL inverter exit should be 200-600 VAC and the voltage before the FL inverter board should be 4.5-5.02 VDC. I have never tried to measure it myself, I just remember this numbers from Toshiba training. I think you should get the same values for HP laptop because most laptop manufacturers use the same LCD screens.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Hi Marlow,
It doesn’t look like a backlight problem. I would suspect the LCD screen itself. Try to start the laptop with an external monitor. If you get the same reddish hue on the external video, the system board (or video card) should be replaced. If the external video is fine then most likely the LCD is going bad. Usually when a reddish hue appears on the screen, the LCD screen failing itself.
April 16th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
[...] Use Toshiba Tecra 8100 display disassembly guide to remove and replace the FL inverter board. If the backlight on your computer suddenly stopped working but you still can see a faint image, then most likely the problem is caused by a failed FL inverter board. Before you jump in and start buying hardware make sure to read through laptop video problem tips. Be very careful with the LCD screen mask. The plastic is very fragile and can be easily broken. Use only your finger when you remove the LCD mask. Do not use a screwdriver or any other sharp object because you can damage the screen. [...]
April 17th, 2006 at 7:42 am
I have an Dell Inspiron 1200 notebook. When the laptop is running on power from the A/C adapter the backlight will only stay on for about 20 minutes. But when the computer is only running on battery power, the backlight will stay on until the battery dies. I already tried replacing the A/C adapter and that did not seem to help. Any other ideas?
April 17th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Erica,
May be it is just a software settings. Check power options in the control panel. There is a setting to turn of monitor after some time. You can set a different time for your laptop when it runs off the battery and off the AC power.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Hi. Thanks ahead of time for any help. I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 that is only displaying a white LCD screen. It displays to an external monitor just fine. I double checked and re-seated the LCD cable and then bought a new one, which didn’t do any better. I went to the Dell website to look for a new driver, but it told me that the driver I had was newer than the one I found on the site.
I can make the screen brighter or dimmer, but the only thing I ever see on the LCD screen is white – even during boot up. I can even get to the bios via the external monitor – just not with the laptop screen.
Any ideas?
April 18th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Hi Jamie,
When I get a laptop with a solid white screen, I’m pretty sure that I can fix the problem by reseating the cable or by replacing the cable. If it doesn’t help (very rare) then you might have a bad LCD screen or a bad system board. The only way to find out witch one is bad is to connect a test LCD screen and see what video output you get. I guess in your case it would be better to take the laptop for diagnostics to a computer repair shop.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:27 am
Having some issues with my M45 lcd. When I first boot up the computer the backlight works fine for 2 or 3 secs then goes out. I can see a faint image if I shine a light at the screen. If I unplug the fl inverter and plug it back in the backlight comes back for a couple secs and goes out. The same will happen if I switch between external video and lcd. I have replaced the fl inverter but the same thing happens. Right now I am running an external monitor.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Hi cj2600
Followed your advice from post 43, changed the video cable for the laptop (12$ + shipping) and now the screen is back to its full functionnal state. A great deal compared to the 449$ flat fee for the service at ACER.
Thanks for your advice
Jean
April 19th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Here’s an odd one – It’s an Acer 1310 and the display is ‘washed out’. All colours are very weak eg black is a blue/grey. Gives the impression of contrast set below zero.
Screen is bright so no inverter problems. VGA output is fine and there is no corruption to the display so no RAM problems.
Any suggestions?
April 19th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
David,
Sounds like the LCD screen problem or the video cable problem. I would try to update / re-flash BIOS. It is possible that BIOS is corrupted. Is there are some settings for the contrast and brightness in BIOS? Try to reseat or replace the video cable. According to Jean (comment 70), the video cable for Acer is pretty cheap.
April 19th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Brian,
There is an issue alert for Toshiba Satellite M45-S165 and M45-S1651 models. It says: “The LCD Back Light would stay off when the Lid Switch was pressed and released quickly.” As a solution, Toshiba recommends to update the BIOS to version 1.50 or higher. Might be your problem somehow related to this issue alert?
April 20th, 2006 at 6:44 am
OK I have updated the bios to the most current and I reinstalled the display drivers, still no luck. Could it be possible that the Lid Switch is bad? Is there any way I could bypass the switch to take it out of the equation?
April 20th, 2006 at 7:29 am
I am replacing the FL Inverter on a Satellite M35X-S149. However, when I first dissassembled the laptop, I noticed there is what appears to be a ground strap coming from the wiring harness that runs from the main board above the F10 key to the connector at the top rear of the LCD panel. This ground strap was not connected to anything, and there does not appear to be any place to connect it. Is this supposed to be connected anywhere? The ground strap naturally lays very close to the lid switch. Thank you.
John
April 20th, 2006 at 7:56 am
John,
The ground strap is not connected to anything on Toshiba Satellite M35X. Just leave it alone with the harness when you assemble the laptop.
April 20th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Sorry Brian, cannot help with the switch. We do not work on the component level. If the motherboard is bad, we replace the entire board and send the original one for repair to Toshiba. I think if the lid close switch is bad, then it is ether always “on” or always “off”. In your case, the backlight starts for 2-3 seconds each time you apply power to the LCD screen. I guess the lid close switch is not your problem.
April 22nd, 2006 at 6:00 am
Hi guys
Great forum – it gave me hope I can sort out my prob with your help!
I have a 2 year old hp Compaq nx5000. The problem it has is that in 90% of the occasions, its backlight fails during resuming from hybernation or stand-by. The only thing that helps keep the backlight on is cold reboot. Even after warm reboot, the backlight does not always stay on. However, once booted successfully, the backlight works fine indefinitely, until the next time I try to resume from hybernation/stand-by or warm reboot.
Does it sound like a software problem to you? I updated the monitor driver, did a Windows update, etc with no success. Shall I be looking at flashing the BIOS?
It would even be helpful if you can just asure me that it is a hardware problem – backlight going, FL inverter failing, loose connections, etc – at least I know I have no other choice but to spend the money to repair it!
Many thanks in advance.
P.S Sorry if I posted twice – my prevous message failed but just in case it went through somehow.
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:47 am
Hi Ivelina,
The problem with backlight might be hardware or software related. How do you put your laptop into hibernation or standby? Do you close the display or you enter these modes through the Windows? If the laptop backlight fails to resume after you close the display, then it might be a lid close switch related problem. Try to tap on it a few times after the backlight fails to start. If the laptop backlight fails to resume after you enter hibernation or standby modes through Windows, then the problem might be related to a bug in the BIOS. Some Toshiba laptops have the same issue and you can fix it by upgrading BIOS. Try to upgrade or re-flash the BIOS.
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Hi cj2600 and thanks for the reply.
I always put the laptop into hybernation/standby by closing the display. When I changed the power settings to “Do nothing” when the lid is closed, the problem did not happen when I reopened the lid (or when I pressed the lid switch for a few moments) so it will have something to do with the computer entering standby/hybernation. I will try using the windows standby next time and i will also try to disable the laptop going into stand by after a period of time (it is currently 30 minutes if not in use) to see what happens.
Please let me know if you still think upgrading the BIOS will help as it does not seem to be a Windows problem.
Many thanks!
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Ivelina,
You are right; it looks like the problem is connected to entering into standby or hibernation mode. I think it is not a problem with the FL inverter board.
I would definitely try to upgrade the BIOS. It is very possible that new BIOS can fix the problem. Carefully read instructions before attempt to upgrade the BIOS.
April 22nd, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Mine sister gave me a satellite 4030cdt laptop. It has a split screen on it problem. The Toshiba is on the buttom when starting up. But when I place mine home monitor on it and the screen is fine. I check all the connections. Any Ideas? Thanks.
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Hello – me again.
Reflashed the BIOS (was latest version anyway) with no luck in solving the problem. I used the Windows-based flash – is that the same as a floppy-disk based or would the latter be worth trying as well?
Does not seem to matter if it enters stand-by from Windows or just by closing the lid – same thing happens. The only thing that keeps the backlight working is to leave all computer on, just close the lid to switch off the screen while not using it.
Any other ideas? I am willing to try anything!
I think there should be a clue (to who can read it!) in that the backlight comes on during the first few moments of resume/boot – it only goes off a few seconds into it (but always at different stages).
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Hey CJ2600 –
I’ve got a Toshiba Satellite P25-S607, and I recently spilled water…ok, boubon and soda, on it.
I immediately shut the power down, took it apart, dried it thoroughly with a hair dryer (not too close) and came back a couple days later to fire it up.
First I should say that after I shut the power down, after the spill, I turned the in an upside down V on the table to help it drain.
Thankfully, the computer runs fine, but the display is dim. External monitor works fine. Lid close switch does nothing…no flickering. Is it possible when the machine was upside down, liquid shorted the FL inverter? Or could I have shorted something on the system board? But, the external monitor works fine. Could it be a power issue to the inverter? I poked around with a voltage meter on the board and was able to get some signal…(not an expert, just poking around) Could you post a close up picture of the inverter, I have what looks like some black goo coming out of a white circular piece on the board, and I’m not sure if its just some kind of insulation on the board, or if something is fried.
Thanks! Great resource!
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Hi there,
Just wondering if you could help. I have an Acer Aspire 1360 which I’ve had for just over a year.
When I put pressure on a certain point of the laptop underneath about an inch or two above the battery just below the arrow keys it swithches itself off immediately. As though the power supply has been disconnected.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for the help you may be able to offer.
Charlie
April 24th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Frank,
I think either the LCD screen itself or the video cable is bad. Not sure, I have never seen a problem like yours. Try to reflash or upgrade the BIOS just in case, it might help.
April 24th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Ivelina,
I think the next step would be reloading the Windows operating system. It is just a guess – may be the power management software is corrupted somehow. By the description you provided, it shouldn’t be the fl inverter board problem, even though everything is possible. Some problems are very weird! I have a laptop that I haven’t been able to fix for over 30 days! Replaced almost every single part twice and it’s still doing the same! Just a nightmare. 
Not sure what is going on with your computer.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Derek,
Here is the best close up picture for Toshiba Satellite P25 FL inverter board I have for this moment.
You should be very happy that your laptop still works. Liquid spills are very unpredictable. Any part could be damaged even if it wasn’t affected by the liquid directly. Yes it is possible that only the FL inverter has been damaged, but it also possible that some circuits on the system board have been damaged too.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Charlie,
I would try to call to Acer and ask them if there is a know issue for your model. It is possible that not only you suffer from the same problem, and it is possible that they can take care of your laptop for no charge. I suggested calling to Acer because I know that Toshiba has some laptop models with a top cover issue, laptops freeze up when you touch the speakers and they fix out of warranty laptops with this problem at no charge to the customers. I’m not familiar with Acer laptops, but may be you have a similar problem?
April 25th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Thanks CJ! However, the business I wanted to see is under that protective plastic.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Hi, CJ. I’m here just to say ‘Thank you’. I tried to open my laptop for checking connector part, but I couldn’t. it’s too tight. I gave it up and decided to send computer to repair center. Today I got back my computer. Fortunately my computer is under warranty. (Actually I didn’t know that.) I really thank you for your guide and advice even though I couldn’t fix it by myself.. They replaced and tested the Main System PCB, COROM and CPU cooling module. Is there any relationship between no signal on the screen and CDROM or Main system? I thought it was VGA proplem. Anyway my laptop came back to me. I’m so happy. ^^
April 26th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Hey Chun,
These days most laptops have a video circuit integrated into the main board. If you experience a problem with video, the entire system board has to be replaced. I guess they replaced the CD-ROM because they detected or suspected some problems. When a laptop is under warranty it is much easier for technicians to replace a suspicious part then to troubleshoot it. Troubleshooting might take hours, replacement just minutes.
I guess you have Toshiba Satellite A70 or A75, that’s why they replaced the cooling fan. Fans on this model are not very reliable.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Hi CJ,
I stumbled across this rather informative site on a Google search about laptop LCD troubleshooting, and was wondering if I could find an answer here.
A bit of history. My Toshiba Satellite M-40 is less than a year old, but has encountered a fair share of problems. A moldy black smudge became a permanent fixture on the upper-right part of the screen. Although things were pretty much viewable, the darkened part was rather unsightly.
Since the notebook was still under warranty, I took it to the Toshiba Service Center for repairs. After the repair was done, the laptop came back with a clear screen, but with uneven lighting – there was a bit of backlight bleeding on the lower edge of the screen.
So back to the repair center it went, and now I got it back without moldy patch, dead pixels, or bleeding. However, there is something very slight that I noticed. My google searches don’t turn up anything definitive, so here goes:
At a normal viewing angle, everything is fine. However, if I tilt the screen back, I start to see a lot of subtle vertical lines all across the screen. These lines very faint, and are completely invisible at a full-on forward view.
So a question – is there a problem, or am I being overly sensitive?
http://www.jetsam.org/lcd1.jpg – Straight-on
http://www.jetsam.org/lcd2.jpg – Tilted
Any assistance is greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Zergrinch
April 27th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Hi Zergrinch,
I wouldn’t really worry about the LCD screen with a bleeding backlight on the lower edge. Some screens have it and I think it’s not a big deal. But I would definitely replace the screen with faint vertical lines.
April 27th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Thanks for the advice, CJ. The bleeding backlight actually bothered me a bit, since it made the screen more glaring for me on the lower part of the screen. Since the faint lines weren’t visible at optimum viewing angles, I was second-guessing myself.
Again, thanks!
Regards,
Zergrinch
April 27th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
thanks for thr info. I just put in a new lcd screen and it is fix.
April 29th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I had my 6 month old Sager packaged to go back, when I decided to look up the faont screen issue. And thanks to your site, I found it to be the switch, just as you said it would be, Thank You!
April 29th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
I have an old toshiba satellite 320 cdt w/ a working inverter & a presario 2200 with a broken inverter. Do u know if it’s possible to replace the presario’s inverter w/ the toshiba’s? I know it’s not likely, but possibly?
Also, would you recommend buying the inverter from any site or company in particular? reputable? I’m in Canada, and am having a difficult time locating a retailer that carries inverters.
cheers
April 29th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
My frined recently bought an Acer Laptop and when the laptop is on there is a small green speck of light in the screen. When it is turned off it vanishes. Any take on that.
Thanx
ps you’ve got a good site. Very helpfull
April 30th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Khalid,
It is unlikely that FL inverter from old Satellite will fit to Presario. I cannot recommend any particular store because we get all our parts directly from Toshiba and never buy them somewhere else. I would research on the Internet.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Ibn,
I think this small green speck is the LCD screen defect. I’ve never heard that a bad video cable or a bad inverter can cause this problem. The only way to fix it is to replace the LCD screen.
Or to set a green background as a wallpaper.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:54 am
hi people….having troubles with my satellite A70 screen….it works perfectly on an external monitor…but on its own..the bottom 2-3 inches of the screen are solid vertical bars (resembling the colors present above them)….i have dismantled the laptop and checked all connections, including grounds…..any help would be great….TY
May 3rd, 2006 at 8:43 am
I got a satellite a75-s209 dim video on lcd. Yet external gets awesome video. No backlight activity when pressing the suspend swith on board. need some advise.
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:59 am
Hello,
I have read all of the entries in this section regarding LCD problems and I am currently having a problem with my Toshiba Satellite 3000 series laptop. The lcd screen is almost black but you can faintly see the display. When I hook it up to an external monitor it looks great and super clear. I replaced the inverter thinking that might be it but with no luck. I am assuming that the only things left to check would be the lcd cable, lcd screen itself or the button to the top left could be stuck causing the backlight to not display. I took this laptop to a laptop repair shop and they previously told me that it was a mother board issue which would have been too costly for me to fix. I am assuming that was not correct since I have no problems seeing the display on an external monitor. Please let me know if you think that it could possibly be anything else. i would rather not trash my laptop since it works great except for the lcd screen. Thanks!
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Hey Justin,
I think you have a bad LCD screen and replacing the video cable will not help.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Heather,
If I would get a laptop like yours for repair I would suspect the FL inverter board first. OK, you have replaced it and it didn’t help. There are 2 more parts in the display assembly – the LCD screen and the video cable. There is only one way to test witch one is failing – to replace them one by one.
By the way, a faint image on the LCD screen might be caused by a failed motherboard. It is not very common problem, but I have seen it before.
Most likely, technicians in the repair shop already tried to install a test LCD screen and video cable, that’s what I would do first.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Hello all
I wonder could anyone help with this problem. I have a Compaq Presario laptop – the monitor display blanks out as soon as the screen goes above a 60 degree angle, the screen is perfectly clear until then. The laptop stays switched on.
Thanks.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:42 am
i have adell insperion i have a line across my screen that goes away briefly when i tap the sides or back of the screen can you give me a clue as to what to do next thank you
May 4th, 2006 at 5:34 am
Thanks for the advice – I bought a refurbished motherboard and hooked it up and that didn’t fix my lcd problem either. Still the same problem surely trying another motherboard I wouldn’t have the same issue if it was the motherboard. So I guess I will try to replace the cable first since I am sure it is less costly and then if that does not seem to help I will replace the lcd screen. I feel like I will have a new laptop by the time I get finished! Thanks!
May 4th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Hi cj,
I’ve been looking over your site for a while now, seems like you might be the man to talk to. I have a Toshiba Satellite A75, and I have a similar problem to Guido from his posts in early April. I have a few thin vertical lines through my screen. When I press on the casing above the screen it goes away, but comes right back when I let go. Does that sound like maybe the casing is just loose somewhere? Maybe it’s possible for me to tight something instead of having to buy an entirely new screen? Not trying to spend hundreds of dollars if I don’t have to of course. Thanks a lot.
May 5th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Michael,
It is possible that the problem is caused by the video cable. Check if the cable is seated properly on the system board and on the back of the LCD screen.
May 5th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Craig,
Connect the laptop to an external monitor. Check if you have the same lines on the external video. If you do then you have a problem with the system board or the video card, I’m not sure if the video card is a separate module in your laptop. If the laptop displays lines only on the internal LCD screen then the problem is somewhere in the display assembly. The LCD screen is bad itself, the video cable is bad or the connection between the cable and the screen is loose. First step would be reseating the video cable on the back of the laptop screen. If it doesn’t help then you have to try to replace the video cable or the LCD screen. One more test. You can grasp the screen for top left and right corners and try to twist it a little bit, put some tension on the screen. If lines go away when you twist the screen, then I would suspect the LCD screen itself.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:10 am
Heather,
You project is getting costly. Are you sure that the FL inverter board you installed was 100% good? It is a reasonable risk to replace the motherboard, the FL inverter board and the video cable, but the LCD screen might be too expensive. That is the most expensive part in any laptop. May be it’s time to invest money into a new laptop?
May 6th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Aaron,
Check out comment 112 where I responded to comment 108. It looks like you have a similar problem. Toshiba Satellite A75 has the video integrated into the system board. If you get the same lines on an external monitor then most likely the system board is bad itself and should be replaced. When you press on the LCD screen cover you also flexing the system board, so it’s hard to say witch part is failing. Try to connect the external monitor first.
May 6th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Hey,
I am having a video problem on my Satellite A75. About an inch to the right of center there is an inch wide vertical stripe that is adding a significant blue tinge to any video displayed there and certain colors get streaked across it horizontally. It happened a couple months ago and I took it to a warranty center (it was still covered then) and they replaced the whole LCD assembly. It has come back now and is no longer covered. I am thinking that there may be something simpler than a bad LCD given that it is happening in exactly the same place as last time. I was wondering if it might be a loose video cable or something like that. I don’t think it can be a software issue because it happens whenever the screen is on (including during BIOS). Any ideas would be great.
Thanks,
Ed
May 7th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Hi Ed,
The warranty center replaced the entire LCD assembly (screen, video cable, FL inverter) or just the LCD screen? If they replaced the entire LCD assembly then it is possible that the video connector on the system board is failing or loose. Try to reseat the cable on the system board. If they replaced only the LCD screen then it is possible that the video cable is bad or the connection on the system board is loose. First, I would try to reconnect the video cable on the back of the screen and on the system board. If it doesn’t fix the problem, the next step would be replacing the video cable. Finally, if a new video cable doesn’t help I would suspect that the video connector on the system board or the system board itself is bad.
May 7th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Thanks for the info! The guy at the warranty center said they replaced the entire assembly, but the paperwork only said the LCD screen, so I dont know entirely. I am going to take the thing apart on Tuesday to clean out my heat sink, and while I am in there I will give all the video connectors a check.
Thanks so much!
May 9th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
My ThinkPad A31p’s screen has horizontal lines going across it. They look like the matrix.
Sometimes they cover a small section of the screen, sometimes they cover the whole screen and flicker.
I can reboot and the screen may be perfect for the rest of the day, or the lines may be there right at boot-up, or they may appear after an hour or so.
This has been going on for a week. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Peggy
May 9th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Peggy,
Have you tried to start the laptop with an external monitor? What video do you have on the external monitor?
BTW, I was troubleshooting IBM ThinkPad A31p notebook this morning. The laptop had a faint image on the screen, the external video was fine. At first I thought about a failed FL inverter board. I took apart the display assembly and removed the screen. After that I connected my test screen and got the backlight! So, I had to quote to the customer a new screen. Our price from IBM was over $600!!! He declined the repair.
May 10th, 2006 at 4:54 am
I was afraid you’d ask that. Unfortunately, I tried an external monitor and the screen was perfect. But it could be that it’s just in a behaving mood right now.
I’ll have to troubleshoot by turning my laptop off and on throughout the day on the external screen to see if I get the garbage. I was hoping the intermittent nature of my problem would be a clue to something.
Thanks very much for your help!
Peggy
May 10th, 2006 at 5:14 am
hi i want to know if you can help me with a problum with a toshiba satelite 2410 pent-4m 17ghz there appears to be a fault with the nvidia driver error warning comes up advising to reinstall driver also when starting up display settings usally have to be reset and display is not always 100% some times will have vertical lines across it laptop is 4 yrs old would be thakful for any help .pat
May 10th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Peggy,
That is the first thing to do if you troubleshoot a laptop with a bad video output. This test helps to determine witch block is failing – the system board or the display assembly. Both parts are very expensive and you don’t want just start replacing parts without troubleshooting.
May 10th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Pat,
Do you see the vertical lines only in Windows? Do they appear right after you start the laptop and Winodws OS is not loaded yet? Have you tried to reinstall the video driver?
You can run a restore CDs (or DVD) to reload the laptop back to original factory settings. It will erase everything from your harddrive, so do not forget to backup or transfer all important data to another location before you reload the laptop. If you have a software issue, it would be fixed after you restore the laptop.
May 11th, 2006 at 4:10 am
Ed,
I tried several times plugging into external monitor yesterday. Each time, the display was perfect. However, my laptop was behaving all day yesterday — until last night. I turned it on, got the garbaged display, and plugged the external monitor cord into the laptop without restarting laptop. Didn’t know if that would work; I guess not. Nothing showed up on external monitor.
So I restarted laptop and external monitor was perfect. Disconnected laptop from external monitor, restarted laptop, laptop screen was perfect. So it’s sure hard to troubleshoot when the problem is so intermittent, but I’ll keep on keepin’ on …
I called IBM, they said I am out of warrty, but to see if I have a loose cable.
I did pay by credit card, and it looks like I may have an extra year’s warranty (Hurray!) so I will call them. To be continued …
May 11th, 2006 at 7:22 am
#
32
cj2600 Says:
April 5th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANSWER…….BELOW
If the connections are fine, then I would try to replace the LCD video cable next. It is the cheapest replacement part between the system board and the LCD screen. You have very good chances that the cable will fix your problem.
There are 2 cables listed for Toshiba Satellite P25-S509:
K000005950 for Samsung LCD screens
K000005960 for LG Phillips screens
Check on the back of the LCD screen who made it and try to find this part via ebay or google.
Video cables in Toshiba Satellite P25 are not very reliable. I repaired a lot of P25 laptops with problem like yours just by replacing the cable. But it also possible that the system board or the screen is causing the problem.
Thank you cj for your response it was already replaced though. So in your expert opinion would you think its the motherboard connection or a bad lcd? and if so is there anyway to test these without swapping them out since i don’t have either here? thank you again for the only useful LCD Q&A site on the internet!
May 11th, 2006 at 7:42 am
ok, its me again, i just got done testing with another lcd screen on this same problem and got the same results…..backlight is light great but no display…..so i guess its the motherboard at this point. I cant possibley think its anything else except maybe two bad vga cables….which i guess is not unheard of in this line of business i have seen similar things before.. any other suggestions?
May 11th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Peggy,
CONGRATULATIONS!
That is a really good idea to buy an extra warranty. If you can get it, you are lucky. IBM parts are very expensive. In your case you have either a bad screen or a bad system board. Each of them would cost you tons of money.
BTW, it is very hard to troubleshoot a laptop with an intermittent problem. You can run it for a few days and it will not fail. But as soon as you give it back to the customer, he calls back with complaints.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Simon,
Two bad VGA cables in a row – not very likely, but still possible.
At this point, if you have tested your laptop with a good known screen and a good video cable but still have no video, I would blame the system board.
Your laptop has a normal video on the external monitor, so I wouldn’t blame the CPU. That’s a tough call man, sorry cannot help.
May 12th, 2006 at 8:39 am
thanks for the response. and yes i agree two in row is very unlikey. since you said, or at least i think you did, you have toshiba experience, do you know where to find a mobo for p25s509? not much luck on ebay or just google either at least for less than 350.
May 12th, 2006 at 9:02 am
Simon,
A new system board for Toshiba Satellite P25 is not cheap. We usually get motherboards directly from Toshiba because we work mostly with warranty laptops.
I think ebay and google are the only options you have. Try to search by the board part number. Do you know the part number for your motherboard? If not, you can give me a model number for your laptop, something like PSP20U-1LKF3V and I can look up the part number for your system board.
May 14th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Hey, sorry but I have a problem similar toGuido R .Rolon as
my screen also has similar colored lines…What should I do? Will my acer warranty cover it?
I dun want to waste unnecessary cash as I need the laptop for my school work.
What is the problem actually?
May 16th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
I am having the same problem Ed did in 115. How did Ed solve the problem? My LCD in a Toshiba A75-S229 displays a magenta colored stripe near the right side in the display, during the BIOS system screen too.
May 16th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Anderson,
I have attempted to solve the problem, unsuccesfully. I have completely disassembled the laptop (I was also going in to clean the heatsink) and display assemblies, disconnecting and reconnecting all of the connectors. This has had no effect on the display issue. I guess my next move is to start ordering replacement parts. It seems that the problem could be anywhere in the video system, from the video card, to the cable, to the inverter or the LCD itself. If anyone has any other suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated.
May 16th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
CJ,
Could you get me the part numbers for the MoBo, VGA cable, inverter and LCD for a Satellite A75-S211? Any other suggestions would be great too!
Thanks,
Ed
May 16th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Hey Ed,
Before you start buying and replacing parts it would be a good idea to narrow down witch part is failing. You mentioned that the laptop repair center replaced at least the LCD screen, so let’s trust them and exclude the screen from the list of suspected parts. I have never seen that a bad FL inverter is causing the problem like yours. Usually, if the FL inverter works, you have the backlight and if it doesn’t work you do not have the backlight. So, we have 2 parts left – the system board and the video cable. Start the laptop with an external monitor connected and check the video. If you see the same vertical stripe on the external monitor, then the system board is bad and has to be replaced. If the external video is fine, then most likely the video cable is bad (replace the cable) or the video connector on the system board is bad (replace the motherboard).
I can look up for part numbers for you. Please give me the model number for your laptop. You’ll find it on the bottom of the laptop, it would be something like this: PSA70U-09700E.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Hi there all. I have a Philips 170s4fg/00h model LCD which suddenly stopped working. The backlight comes on just as normal when I turn on the PC but no display. The OSD works fine as well. I have looked at the controller board for signs of an issue but nothing burnt or blown up that I can see. Big ups for any suggestions.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:36 am
PPS. the OSD does work for some functions except the the contrast and brightness and colour settings are all stuck at -1. Thanks
May 18th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
hi i have a p35 satelliote and only half of my light works its only a faint light and it keeps makin werid beeps does that mean i have to get a FL? help me pls i couldnt use my computer fo 5 months
May 18th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
i like to say this is a very very helpful and informative website. thank you so much for some of the items here.
i have an ASUS W3V with ATi x600. just recently my TFT LCD would dim or faint out. 98% happens during the startup of games (warcraft and counter-strike). for every other tasks such as photoshop, web browsing, MS office, it would be perfectly normal.
when i alt-tab back to the desktop, re-plug AC power, or gentle tapping would get the LCD to come back. sometimes nothing works and i have to restart and it comes back to normal.
i downloaded all the latest driver and it kept me trouble free for a couple of days then the problem came back again.
there is no switch for the lid and its a hinge type. the LCD does turn off when the lid is almost shut (sensor inside hinge i believe). when i use an external monitor it works perfectly.
from your expertise, do you think this is the faulty inverter? hardware problem? or some software problem?
any imput would be highly appreciated, thank you everyone.
May 20th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
I have a 2647- 4EU IBM T22 Laptop .. I have used it for past three years … since about three months, the display becomes almost zero … if loked carfully, very faint image can only been seen on screen …. the display come back after I reparatedly connect and disconnect external monitor …. some times it takes many such attempts … external monitor alwayd shows image from laptop … any advice to repair this laptop willl be highly appreciated .. I wish to repair it myself… Thanks a lot
May 21st, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Charlie,
If you see only a faint image on the screen, then most likely the FL inverter board is bad and has to be replaced. Also, it is possible that the LCD screen backlight bulb is bad itself or the video cable is bad (not very likely). It is hard to say witch part is causing the problem. I usually install a test FL inverter board to see if it fixes the problem.
I cannot say why your laptop beeps without looking at it. There might be many different problems.
May 21st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Eugene,
You say that a gentle tapping can help you to get the backlight back. I would suggest reseating connectors on the FL inverter board, even though it’s only a guess. Also check if there is a BIOS update. It is possible that there is a fix for video problems in new BIOS release. I’ve never seen a problem like yours before. Usually if a piece of hardware fails it doesn’t matter what application you use.
May 21st, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Hey John,
) and reseat cables on the FL inverter board first. If it doesn’t help, replace the inverter board. I think you have good chances to fix your laptop by replacing the inverter board.
In your case I would suspect a bad FL inverter board. If the display backlight sometimes comes back, then apparently the screen backlight bulb is fine. You can remove the LCD mask (I hate removing the mask from IBM screens
May 23rd, 2006 at 5:24 am
Hi,
I have read around 30 posts, and didnt see a problem that was exactly like mine, but here it is:
I get no backlight at all, i have checked the lid switch and taped and did every thing i can to it (i work with ps2s, and i know how them switches can be). Any way, it did work this morning, it just went out (just fixed the mother board
, new security chip. i have reseated the connections a few times and still nothing. I did not bend the lcd or any thing that i know of where the back pannel of the lcd would be broken (i cant see any cracks or any thing either).
Of what i read, if there is a backlight for a bit, then goes out, its the inverter, can it just not work at all and be it?
also the backpannel bulb, its flourscent light, and normaly dont just blow like a bulb in a house, but can it durning power up?
Also is there any kind of ways to test the inverter/backpannel to find what is the problem, or to actaully know that they are working right, but something is not connected?
Such as reading the AC voltage on the inverter to the bulb (probley not but just a ex.) Also i have some older thinkpads here (mines a T30) and i know that they have working inverters and bulbs, can i use one of them (maybe some soldering) to just use as a test, maybe pernament. They are the 365XD model (both are).
* I might take the backpannel apart and check the wires to the bulb to see if it has any beaks, them are too small of wires for my likeing
. but thats probley a few days later.
Like i kind of metioned, i fix ps2s/xboxes and other small electonics just about every day, also modding them, so i have a pretty good hand at soldering/working with electronics. If you want, you can do a google serch for “cmd19872002″ for some of my history
.
Thank you very much for your time (i use to help people online all the time and i know it kind of gets tiresome answering questions for nothing, but in the end its worth it
.
cmd19872002
Email: PS2fixer(AT)Gmail.com
May 23rd, 2006 at 5:27 am
Opps, sorry about the double post, but forgot, on the inverter board there is the lights for the power/suspend, and they do light up, so i do know that the board is geting somewhat power.
Thanks again,
cmd19872002
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:49 am
Please help! My name is Carlos.
I have also a very thin vertical cyan line in my display. I have tested plugging my computer on a external monitor and it disapears. Does anybody now what would be the most accurate problem? Should I consider: 1.Display hardware LCD problem? 2. Display cable (motherboard to display)? 3. Motherbaord problem?
I ask for any help since I’m living in Brazil and technical opinions are welcome before I go to any costumer support over here.
Any help will be fine.
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:18 pm
HI Carlos,
Im no pro with laptops, but if i was asked, i would say the LCD screen, I think if the wire was bad, the screen would have more than 1 line in it. But dont hold me to my word, wait for cj2600, thats the pro
.
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Hey Cory,
First of all, did you replace the motherboard? Is it possible that you got a bad motherboard?
If the FL inverter is bad then you can get the backlight working for a while on start up or it will not light up at all, not for a second. Both variants are possible. But you should have a faint image on the screen if it is the FL inverter problem. Sometimes it’s very hard to see any image, but it still should be there. With IBM laptops you usually can see IBM logo on startup (very faint). The video on an external monitor should be fine, hook it up and check the video just in case.
Toshiba says that you can test the FL inverter with a multimeter. The voltage on the exit from the FL inverter board should be 200-600 VAC. I have never tried to measure it myself and I don’t know if this numbers are accurate. I guess you can measure the voltage on the exit from the FL inverter board to see if you have any output at all.
For test I have 2 different backlight bulbs with different connectors, they were removed from cracked LCD screens. If I see a problem with the backlight, I disconnect the LCD screen from the FL inverter and connect my test backlight lamp. If I still have no backlight then the LCD screen is not my problem and most likely the inverter is bad. If I was able to light up my test backlight lamp, them most likely the backlight on the LCD screen is bad.
You can open one of yours laptops to check if the connector for FL inverter board is the same as on the laptop you are trying to fix. If it is the same connector, you can try to connect your screen to the laptop you are fixing and see if you can get the backlight. It is not necessary to connect the data cable, only the cable for the FL inverter would be enough. If you still cannot get the backlight, them most likely the inverter is bad.
I had a situation very similar to yours. I had to replace the LCD cover on IBM laptop because it was cracked around hinges. After I replaced the cover, the laptop booted without any backlight, it even didn’t turn on for a millisecond. There was a very faint image on the screen. LEDs on the FL inverter board worked fine. I connected my test backlight bulb and it didn’t light up. The problem was fixed by replacing the FL inverter board.
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Hey Carlos,
I agree with Cory. The external monitor has a normal video output, so most likely the system board (video card) is fine. I would suspect the LCD screen itself.
May 24th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Wow, I was thinking on the right path for Carlos’ laptop
Maybe i should get into laptop repair also lol.
Any way, the connector for the bulb is a little bit bigger, but i would think that i could solder wires directly on the junker one (just more stuff missing lol). I would think that most inverters would be the same voltage, also i will try to get a good reading on the inverter that might be bad, im hopeing its just that switch so i can just do a quick solder fix, but if i have to put more money into it i guess i should make it right. Thanks a lot for your help so far
.
Also i forgot to tell you about the other things, it does have the very dim immage (ibm logo is about all i can ever make out, but i know it loads to windows). I have another mother board here, but i got error 192 (fan error) with it and that was before the light went out (geting my $150 back from that thing).
I might have to do some research on FLs and FL inverters, my dad has a ton of FL fixturs that i could “hack” apart and make it where the small bulb could plug into it (right polarity of course, if it matters). That is where my multimeter might come in handy
. Im off to fix this and that so i will check back here later.
cmd19872002
May 24th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Wow my invertor is bad, i think im going to check that other laptop out (one i never said about, because it actually works lol, but its too slow to use really)
Only thing is, if that lid switch is stuck, then i would get the same reading, so i will have to check that befor i can confirm it, but i have a feeling its the FL invertor.
Oh ya, my ext monitor works just fine.
Reading to FL…0 vac im going to take a reading on the other one now…
Wow its a weird reading, around 4.1.0 (yes 2 . in it) Thats on 600vac setting. other did read 0 so now its either the switch or invertor… be back with more news lol.
Maybe i should team up with you on this sight to help people
.
New news, the button is “NOT” stuck down my invertor is acting up/bad
. Time to price check on ebay lol, or maybe i will be lucky and be able to fix the one here 
.
May 26th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Problem: All of a sudden the screen on my Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161 went out. I turned the machine off and could hear it boot but the screen would not come on.
I am out of my warranty since I have had the machine a little over a year so I brought it to a local shop. He held a flashlight up to the screen and couldn’t see anything. He also hooked it up to an external monitor-again nothing.
Just got the call that the motherboard is bad and a refurbished one is about 400-500 bucks. Have you seen anything similar with this model?
Sadly,
Lauren
May 28th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Hey Lauren,
I have seen it many times. In this case I usually try to replace the memory first. If it doesn’t help I remove the wireless card because it might hold the system from booting. After that I minimize the system completely and leave only the system board, the CPU (with cooling module) and my test memory. If still there is no video, either the system board or the CPU is bad. From my experience, the system board fails much more often then the CPU.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:45 am
dear repairer
All of a sudden the screen on my Toshiba Satellite A60 went outand become white. I turned the machine off and could hear it boot but the screen would not come on. it stays white
but when i put it on an external monitor it works fine
i want an help from you
May 31st, 2006 at 1:13 pm
When the screen is white I would try to reseat the video cable on the back of the LCD screen first. There is a very good chance that the video cable is half-way or completely out and reseating the cable will fix the problem.
June 4th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
[...] I would say that everyone who gave you an advice is right in some degree. The problem might be caused by a failing video card, the video cable, the FL inverter board, the LCD screen or just by a loose connection. It depends on how your screen flickers. You can find some video troubleshooting tips here. Here are my thoughts. [...]
June 9th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
[...] More laptop video troubleshooting tips. Posted by Laptop Freak on June 9th, 2006 Filed in Video Problems [...]
June 10th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Hi all, I have the same problem as Guido in post 38. I own a Toshiba P35-S609. A couple of months ago two vertical lines appeared on each side of the screen. Since then they have multiplied and I now have more than 20 lines of different colors in two groupings at each end. As in Guido’s case the lines do not show up on an external monitor. Did anyone manage to solve this problem without replacing the LCD (i.e. by replacing the video cable)? My computer is out of warranty and I am not keen to shell out $600 for a new screen. Any comments would be much appreciated.
June 12th, 2006 at 11:46 am
I have a Toshiba Sat. 1115-S123 I was having problems with the display so I carefully opened the LCD cover and found that the plastic connecter that connects the inverter to the cable that goes to the backlight is broken. When I hold the cable in it works fine but I need the plastic piece to keep the cable in. I really do not want to have to purchase a complete inverter for 60-80 bucks in order to replace a small 1 cent plastic piece. Any ideas?
June 12th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Thank you for the trouble shooting advice! My LCD screen became very dim, just as you described and after following your advice-it turned out to be the lid close switch!! I have a Satellite P35 17″ and I have experienced quite a few problems with my LCD Screen, primarily BAD PIXELS!! My lap-top is used as a desk top PC, so I am not sure what is causing these issues! I know that Toshiba has claimed issues similiar to this one, but not for my model. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
June 13th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Hey Kelly,
Are you talking about small white 2 prong plastic connector with 2 wires coming out? If yes, them this connector is not a part of the FL inverter board. This connector is a part of the LCD screen.
I’ve seen some cables with this small connectors already attached to it. This cables are used to extend the lengths of cabling from the LCD screen to the inverter board. I guess that’s what you need. When you find one, you can cut off the old connector and solder new cables with the plug already attached to it. After that you just plug it back into the inverter board. I do not know the correct name for this cables, I would call it something like “LCD screen backlight cable extension kit”. I hope I understood you correctly.
June 15th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
[...] According to the failure description I would say that you are having a problem with the FL inverter board. It is possible that the screen is bad itself, the video cable is defective, but I would suspect the inverter first. It might be just a loose connection or a bad inverter. [...]
June 19th, 2006 at 5:24 am
I have a Compaq Presario 1500 Laptop, with a 15″ LCD HSD150PX14-A
When turning the laptop on the display light is ok and boot perfect. LCD’s Bright and Color Perfect. If I work for some time (1 hour, 4 hours, 15 minutes – the failing time is random) or when I move the LCD Assembly (to open or close) then the backlight goes dark, but I can see barely the desktop image.
If I press the little “latch switch” that the screen frame hits when it closes then let that pin go again, nothing change.
If I put Windows XP in Standby (suspend) mode and resume to normal mode or turn off and turn on the laptop, the screen will light again with the brightness and color perfect.
I think that the problem would be the Inverter, Inverter Cable or the CCFLs, so I decided to buy an Inverter and Inverter cable. After replace them, the problem still happens.
I read in other forums that if the CCFL goes bad, the Inverter detect it and turn off itself for safety, Is that true???. At that point I not sure if the new inverter is bad too, or the problem is inside the LCD.
Any Ideas?????
Thanks in advance!
Luis
June 19th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Luis,
You’ve replaced the FL inverter and the cable, so the only part left is the screen itself. I do not think that inverter can turn itself off for safety. From my knowledge, the main function of the FL inverter board is to provide a necessary voltage and amperage to light up the backlight bulb. Correct me if I’m wrong. I think that in your case the CCFL is bad itself (if your new inverter is OK of course).
Also, there is a possibility that there is something wrong with the system board. The FL inverter is getting power from the board, right? What if the inverter is good, the cable is good and the screen is good but something wrong with a circuit that provides power for FL inverter? That is just a guess. I think that’s would be nice if you can find a second (test) screen or just a bulb and connect it to your laptop.
When we get a cracked screen with good backlight bulb, we always remove the bulb for testing purposes. That’s would be very useful in the case like yours.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:18 am
Thanks for your answer. I think too that the problem would be a bad CCFL. My only concern is to know how is the behavior of a bad CCFL?.
In my case, Always I cut energy to the lcd assembly (Turn-off and turn-on or Put XP in Standby and resume) the CCFLs always works fine, and after that, sometimes works fine for 3-4 hours!!!, but when the backlight turn off, I noticed that the lcd screen is hot, and if I press the “backlight turn off switch” (that supose cut the energy to the backlight too) the CCFLs not
respond… very weird!!!
Based on your experience, do you think that a bad CCFL could work for 4 hours before to fail (work intermittently)?, could be a bad solder joints?, CCFL Overheat?, CCFL Cracked??
Any sugestions will be apreciated
Thanks again for your usefull help!!!!
-Luis
June 21st, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Luis,
I think that you might have a different problem then just a bad CCFL. I just talked to other technicians and we all agreed that if CCFL goes bad, it might flicker, it might not to work at all or it might work fine for a short period of time, but you say it stays on for 3-4 hours. It’s hard to say what is wrong. The best way to test it would be connecting a test screen. Check if the connection between the screen and the FL inverter board is fine.
Might be it’s just a bad inverter again?
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I have a Toshiba M35X-S161. I’m having problems with the dc connector also…How do you get the computer apart to resolder the connector.
I have taken out about 30 screws and it still wil not come apart…
Any help would be appreciated.
Jack
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Jack,
Where did you stuck, witch disassembly step?
June 24th, 2006 at 7:54 am
My lcd screen comes on sometimes when I start my computer with red letters while the computer boots up and then a very faint image once Windows is running. I also have a funky loose connection on my AC adapter and my battery is not charging. I’m not sure if these are related issues or not. One time I fiddled with the AC charger and I turned on the laptop. To my surprise the backlight came on pretty good. It was still a little reddish and flickering kind of but I could actually work through the LCD display pretty well. I stopped working and came back and it had gone back to being dim again.
I think it is the FL inverter board based on what I’ve read here. I’m not sure how to reseat the cables and all of that or to install a new FL inverter board but maybe I’ll look into it.
June 24th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Revision to problems below:
I just noticed that the battery IS charging now just fine. I think it’s because I’ve turned the LCD off and I’m using a CRT monitor now. When I toggle to the LCD display I still get the faint image. I’m not sure why it was bright that one time though. Any help would be appreciated.
June 24th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
A reddish video might indicate a problem with the LCD screen itself. Do you have a reddish image on the external monitor? If yes, then the system board could be bad. If no, them most likely the screen itself. Most of the time a faint image on the internal screen is caused by a failed inverter, but with your reddish video I’m not really sure. Might be just a bad screen.
June 24th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
I’m not getting the red anymore on the lcd. All I see is a very faint image. Another thing that is weird is that the battery says its 100% charged now but if I disconnect the AC adaptor then it starts to beep and it turns itself off. When I close the lid on the laptop I’ve set the alarm to go into standby and therefore I can rule out the stuck plastic switch problem. The only alarm that I have for the battery is a low battery text warning so I can’t understand why it shuts down unless it’s just a really bad battery. If so then why is it now at 100% and originally it was at 6% when I got the computer?
June 24th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
There is no red on the CRT and there never was any. Just on the LCD and now it’s gone away. Instead I can barely see the faint white text on the black screen as it starts up. Won’t start on battery power alone.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:55 am
I have Toshiba Satellite A75-S209 LCD display is so dark that you can’t read anything on the computer. We had used the computer the night before and it was fine, we shut the cover and when we went to reopen the screen was almost black.
Is it possible that the screen is gone? Please Help.
June 28th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Owen,
I’m almost positive that the battery is bad. A bad battery behaves exactly as you described below. You can charge it from 0% to 100% and it might take some time, but as soon as you unplug the AC power plug, the battery discharges very quickly, sometimes almost instantly.
I still think that you have a problem with the LCD screen (reddish hue) and this problem might not be related to the backlight. If the reddish hue is gone now, it will appear later. In most cases, when there is no backlight it the FL inverter board failure.
If you really want to try to fix the backlight problem, I would go with the inverter board first, but be prepared that you can get a red color on the LCD later.
June 28th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Jennifer,
Yes, it’s possible the screen is gone, but most likely it’s just a bad FL inverter. Check the lid close switch stuck, tap on it for a few times.
July 1st, 2006 at 9:22 am
Thanks for your help cj600. I removed the FL inverter board to take it to a computer shop and find that part. I wasn’t able to find one in the stores but I did find one on eBay that says it’s “NEW”. Should I buy a new FL inverter before I get a new panel? One thing that I can not understand is why I still get a faint image on the Panel even though I’ve removed the FL inverter? I see it mostly when the PC is starting up and the Windows Logo comes on with the little progress bar. I thought that by removing the FL inverter, I was severing any connections between the panel and motherboard.
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Owen,
A new FL inverter costs much cheaper then a new LCD. There is a very good chance that a new inverter will fix your backlight problem (but not reddish hue). You should see a faint image even if the FL inverter is removed. FL inverter helps to light up the backlight bulb and doesn’t affect data transfer from the system board to the screen.
July 8th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
[...] Here’s my previous post about troubleshooting and fixing notebook video problems. [...]
July 11th, 2006 at 12:27 am
i tried to open the lcd of my presario v2140US but i can’t take off the bottom part after removing six screws. i was trying to see if there is loose connection to the FL inverter as suggested(faint lcd image). help please
July 11th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Hi, I bought a Compaq Presario R3000 about a year ago. It ran great until two days ago when the screen suddenly “dimmed” in the middle of an application. One minute it was fine, the next the colors from the screen became really “washed out”–similar to when you turned the contrast all the way up, and you can only see faint images and colors in a whie haze. I was told that it may take up to $300 or more to fix it (depending on what the problem is). Can you give me an idea as to what the problem may be, and whether self repair is possible? Any comment would be appreciated!
Thank you!
July 11th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Sandy,
Try to boot the laptop in Safe Mode and see if you still have the same problem with the video. If it works fine in the safe mode, then you might have an issue with the video driver. Try to reload the video driver.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, restarting it in safe mode doesn’t work either. When I restarted the screen, I noticed the top third of the screen is “brighter” than the bottom half. I suspected a problem with the hardwares since the problem persisted and began as soon as the computer is turned on. Furthermore, when I connected my desktop monitor to the laptop, the display on the monitor is perfectly fine. Thanks again and please, any advise/suggestion is greatly appreciated!
July 12th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I recently got given a Compaq Presario 1200 model 12XL300. It has a 600mhz celeron with 128mb ram and a 6gb harddisk. He told me the screen started playing up when he tried to install XP.
The screen has an extremely slow response time, it is very blury. If you could imagine dividing the screen into three colums the middle colum is washed out.
I am not 100% sure if the screen is actually faulty as i havwe not seen it in action before it was formatted with XP. Using an external display it works fine.
I have installed 98SE with the drivers from the HP Compaq website to no avail. The screen is slow also in the post and bootup.
Is it worth checking the logic board and replugging the video cable/Backlight ?
Thanks
July 12th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Julius,
I think that’s a bad LCD screen. A bad video cable can cut off the video signal completely or you’ll get some garbaged video, but I doubt that a bad video cable can cause just the middle column to be washed out.
It’s not the FL inverter board. The FL inverter provides power for the backlight bulb and if it’s bad you have no backlight at all. It will affect the entire screen and not the part of the screen.
So, if the laptop works fine with an external monitor then it must be the LCD screen problem and the motherboard (video card) should be fine.
July 14th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Hey CJ, you have helped quite a bit in the past, im just needing a refresher. where to start with a laptop that will not boot externaly or internal monitor?
July 14th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Simon,
Test the memory, try to install a test module, move it from one slot to another. Minimize the system – remove HDD, DVD, wireless card, etc… Finally, reseat connectors.
July 16th, 2006 at 6:14 am
anybody here encountered a problem regarding sensor switch magnet for toshiba satellite P10?
thanks!
July 19th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
i currently own an ECS G556E notebook and sometimes after i resume from standby the lcd does not turn on. the lid is not closed when this occurs. whay could possibly be the problem? thanks!
July 25th, 2006 at 2:24 am
i have a toshiba satellite p10-792 and encountered all the symptoms of bad fl inverter but what really bothers me is that when the fl inverter gone bad sometimes my laptop will not boot.is bad fl inverter can be the cause of my laptop not to boot.
thanks mr. cj2600
July 25th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Hi,
I have a Dell Inspiron 7000 running a clean install of Windows ‘98 se. Out of nowhere the right half of the screen is a garbled combination of the colors and icons on the left side of the desktop. The display works properly if I go vga out to a monitor or s-video out to the tv. I changed the cable to the display and swapped in another video card, but still have the same problem. any advice would be appreciated! thanks, John
July 26th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Pat,
Start the laptop with an external monitor and wait until it goes to a standby mode. After that resume it from standby and see if you experience the same problem with an external monitor. If the laptop works fine with the external monitor, then the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly, possible the FL inverter is going bad. If you still having the same problem with the external monitor, then it’s not the display. Call to the manufacturer and ask them if there is a BIOS update for you laptop.
July 26th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Maxell,
I think that you might have more then one problem in your laptop. The laptop still should boot fine (without video on the screen), even though the FL inverter is bad.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
John,
Did you try to boot the laptop in Safe Mode? If the laptop video works fine in Safe Mode (system uses standard VGA device driver), then you might have a corrupted driver. I would also try to re-flash/update the BIOS.
Do you get a garbled video on the screen even before the OS is loaded?
July 28th, 2006 at 5:16 am
About the reply #166:
I got a test lcd (same model) with a good backlight, so I check and the problem was not the Inverter, the problem was the CCFL (This Hannstar 15″ lcd have only 1 CCFL on the botton of the display) so I changed the CCFL fron the test lcd to my lcd and It is working fine!!!.
Thank you for all your help!!!!!
July 29th, 2006 at 12:41 am
mr. cj2600 thanks for your reply(193).now that i figure out that fl inverter should not give booting problem what will be the next step for me?is it a power problem?
thanks once again.your site is very helpful.
July 29th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Maxell,
First of all, confirm that the laptop is getting power when you plug the AC adapter. The power LED on the laptop should light up when you plug the adapter. Try to wiggle the power plug and see if the power LED flickers when you do that. If the LED flickers, then you might have a problem with the power jack of with the power plug on the adapter.
If the power is stable, then I would try to reseat or replace the memory module. If the memory module is bad, the laptop will not boot.
By the way, the laptop will not boot into Windows or it will not start at all?
July 29th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Hi, cj2600 and All,
In response to post 194, the right side of the screen is blank during BIOS info at startup, as well as durning the Dell and Windows start screens. Once the desktop is loaded, the right side of the screen (exactly from the middle to the right) is generally the same color as the desktop background but displays no other information. The mouse pointer just disappears if you go over there. Sometimes it is blank or contains colored verticle bars. When booting in safe mode, I have the same problem. I have also installed the latest drivers for the ATI mobility card. But still the same problem. As you know, I had also replaced the cable and swapped in another video card. I have not updated the BIOS because I have heard it can mean trouble for the 7000. I don’t want any more trouble. But I’ll probably do it anyway, because I am running out of options. Thanks for any advice,
John
July 29th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Hi! i checked the power and it is ok.while i was doing it i came across with the cd mode in front panel and try to play some cd.it is working but when i press the power switch while playing a cd an amber light is flashing slowly from the power switch itself and the power LED. i tested the memory module with my friend’s laptop (same model) and it is working very fine.regarding the booting behavior of my laptop, when i did not use it for about 2-3 days it will boot fine but after shutting it down it will not boot anymore.not even bios.it is intermittent sometime after few hours it will boot again.
thanks!
July 31st, 2006 at 11:40 pm
mr.cj2600,
thanks for every bit of little help youve given me.now, my laptop is working fine. before i go to toshiba center to buy a new fl inverter, i try to remove the sensor switch magnet out of the main board just to make sure that it is not the source of my problem. after removing it, i test its continuity with my tester and it is always in close position. the sensor switch magnet in my laptop(P10-792) should be in open position whenever a magnet is not present (lid is open) so when i assemble my laptop again without the sensor switch magnet, my laptop is back to life again.i found out also that this switch is preventing my laptop from booting.
thank you very mr.cj2600!
August 5th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Help! Sent my Toshiba a75 s2292 into be repaired was told that the blue line and blue ribbon going up and down my lcd was from Tab separation. I can not find any information on this. Recently it was repaired for overheating and also the motherboard was replaced.
The claim from the repair facility is it must of been in a padded case and then dropped (Padded case because there aren’t any cracks or marks on the computer case). this computer was not dropped by me at anytime. Am I being taken for a ride ?
August 6th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Hi!
I have a satellite P25 S607 in which the monitor is very dark. External monitor works fine. I actually switched the lcd screen with another laptop and it still looks the same.
When I push the lid close swith I can see a change in the light, but when it is not pushed it is very dark. I do not see a faint image even if I look very hard.
I think it is the FL converter, but not sure. What do you think?
Thank you!!!
August 7th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Cynthia,
So did they fix the problem or they didn’t? There is no way for me to say if the laptop has been physically damaged without looking at it. I do not really understand what they mean by Tab separation. Does it mean that the video cable connector wasn’t seated properly?
Sometimes you can get vertical lines on the screen because the LCD screen is bad.
How can you determine that the laptop was dropped if there are no cracks on the case???
August 7th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Malia,
By connecting another LCD screen and having the same problem, you proofed that it’s not the backlight bulb problem (if the spare LCD screen is good of course).
Sometimes, when the FL inverter is bad, it’s very hard to see any image on the screen. Usually you can see only a very faint Toshiba logo in the middle or a faint Intel logo in the lower right corner, and after that everything is very dark.
I think that you have very good chances to fix the problem if you replace the FL inverter. Just in case I would reseat the video cable on the system board and the cable that entering the inverter before buying parts.
August 12th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I have an HP Pavilion ZV5000 and the s video out quit working. I tried to buy an adapter to go off of the VGA output ands into the TV, but this will only work (with weird colors) as the laptop boots, but then quits. I took this to Geeksquad and they said they’d have to ship it in and that I’d probably need a new motherboard….any advice?
August 14th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
My Inspiron 9300 with a wide screen display 17″ suddenly had tow vertical lines appear and never go away. they seem to delineate a conventional screen size as they are each roughly 2″ from the left and right edge of the screen. They are no more than a pixel or so wide—like threads –but the do over everything including the bottom task bar. Is my screen givign out? is it video connected?
August 19th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I’d like to know how do a FL inverter brakes. I’ve just changed mine and after few weeks the problem came back. Is there some another problem inside my notebook that is damaging the inverter? What should I do? I have a toshiba satellite 1800 207s.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:27 am
i have recieved a laptop which is ibm 600e
ok lests ee its problem
no ibm screen at startup on lcd but yes there is display on external monitor
using fn +f? does bring the ibm logo on lcd and the laptop starts to boot well when windows 2000 is booting the ccfl goes off
tried the thing for aleast 20 times but ccfl goes of at the same point
everytine boot up no lcd display
have to use fn + f? to bring on display
okay used the fn +f? key and pressed f1 went in to bios checked the lcd test and then left it on for two hours
ccfl and the in verter satys on no problems
the self test in the bios uses all modes display to check it
i had another lcd of a brand new r51 laptop ofcource the lcd was broken by accdentially keeping a pencil bon the keyboard but the ccfl is u cansay month old ony
plugged the ccfl into the inverter
same problem
well i think this is purely bios problem
i mean question 1:- why does it pass all tests in bios tests and the 2 hour test the ccfl passed
question 2
when i go to the bios and say that it should display on both then save the setting and exit
it only shows in the external monitor
well i feel its the bios
ill try something tommorw loke take another hdd and load wiin 98
which originally it was supposed to be handling
by the way win 2000 is load ed
lets see
August 20th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Simon w,
I think that guys from Geeksquad are right; it looks like a motherboard problem.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Dan DiStasio,
These lines appear even before the laptop boots to Windows? These lines look like lines on the example 2 here? If yes, then most likely that’s the screen problem.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Andre,
I don’t know why FL inverters break. I think it’s just like any electrical device fails without any reason.
Are you sure that your backlight problem is related to a bad FL inverter? Have you checked if the lid close switch moves freely? Did you install a new inverter board or it was an aftermarket part?
It looks like Toshiba new about FL inverter board issue in this model for a while and even was replacing inverters on out of warranty laptops until May 4, 2006. Check out Toshiba laptop screen flicker settlement. I guess that original inverters for this model had a defect and Toshiba had to modify them somehow to prevent the backlight failure. May be your second FL inverter comes from a not modified batch? That’s just my guess.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Tarun,
I think you are right; it might be the BIOS related problem. Try to re-flash the BIOS. I don’t think that reloading OS is going to help a lot. Weird problem. I can assume, that it also might indicate a problem with the system board. Please let me know if you find the fix.
August 24th, 2006 at 2:43 am
I accidentally stepped on my laptop and now the colors are inverted (negative). For the rest it’s working fine. Reseating the connections did not help, it’s a Fujitsu P1120 with 8.9″ Toshiba screen.
I installed Powerstrip and can reverse the colors, which almost look normal now. However, colors stay inverted during video playback and I would rate the screen quality 70% of original.
Can you tell me which component(s) may have been damaged, how I can test this and perhaps even if it can be fixed?
Is it the inverter? I found refurbished inverters on the Web but want to be sure to make the right diagnosis.
Thanks!
August 24th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
I have a Thinkpad T30 that I got after the owner dropped it and broke the LCD. I replaced the LCD and I have learned that there is a problem where the front memory slot doesn’t work. I cannot be sure, but I think it hasn’t worked for some time. I have searched around and found that this is a common problem with this model, but that the “free Engineering change” from IBM is no longer available. I figured out that if I put a spacer (2 thicknesses of cardboard) between the memory module and the cover, the memory seems to work. Do you think this is a situation where I could make a permanant fix by resoldering the connections between the MB and the slot? If so. how and where should I apply the heat, assuming I use a heat gun.
Thanks
August 24th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Hey Rich,
I would leave it the way it is. If you try to re-solder the memory slot, you can permanently damage the board. I know that professionals with right equipment can do that, but I would never try it myself. Just leave it as is.
If the laptop works with “cardboard engineering change”
September 1st, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Heather:
I have a Satellite 3000 with similar problem to yours… external monitor works fine but LCD goes dark. In my case I notice the LCD image is fine for a while when I power up, but it goes dark or the whole system freezes, especially if I move or pick up the laptop a certain way.
To me this suggests a problem with a bad solder joint or connector. I’ve replaced the FL inverter, the motherboard and still does the same. The only thing I haven’t tried is replacing the graphics card.
So… I just bought a graphics card (part no. K000810990) and will post a message on here and let you know whether or not this fixes the problem when it arrives next week.
Tony
September 1st, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Wow, great site. Good to see someone helping people.
I was using my Compaq Presario x6000 tonight like normal, then all the sudden the screen is filled with thousands of vertical blue lines. On a white background they change to yellow.
I got in touch w/tech support, they had me do the external monitor test, which showed the lines on the external monitor. Based on what I’ve read above, that would mean my video card is bad?
Should I remove and reinsert the card to see if that will fix it or just go ahead and try to order another card?
I belive my notebook has a ATI Mobility Radeon x600.
Thanks for your time!
September 2nd, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Hi Luke,
If you get the same lines on the internal LCD screen and the external monitor, then most likely the video card is bad. But I think that in this model the video card is integrated into the system board and you cannot reseat it. If the video card is bad, you’ll have to replace the system board. After a quick search, I found maintenance and service guide for Compaq Presario X6000. It’s a pdf file and might take some time to open it up. The manual will show how to remove the system board. Navigate to “Removal and Replacement Procedures” entry in the left pane and go to line 5.16 – system board. There you’ll find a part number for your system board; it depends on how much video memory you have. Man, I googled for these boards and they are expensive.
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
cj2600,
Wow, thanks for the link. I agree w/your logic…
Yes, it seems my pc has a very expensive motherboard, looks like I’m out of luck for now
Guess thats what you get for buying a nice computer. ha.
Thanks for the help, I take it from your perspective, having removeable video is a good thing to look for when buying a notebook?
Thanks again.
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Great Website. Thank you for taking the time to help me and everybody else.
I have an IBM thinkpad T22.
Recently, When I turn it on the screen is very dark and I see a faint image of windows.Sometimes When I jiggle the screen back and forth the screen goes back to normal and stays that way till I shut down.
Now even the jiggling doesnt bring back the screen and all I see is a dark faint image. However, The display comes up perfectly using an external monitor.
Do you belive it is most likely an inverter problem?
I am just not sure where to start. Thank you.
-Ricky
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Ricky,
I think it could be just a loose connection and you can fix the problem by reseating connectors on the inverter board. To reseat the inverter board, open up the display assembly, disconnect the inverter board (both connectors) and connect it back. If you plan to do it yourself, you’ll find a link to IBM laptop disassembly manuals here.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:18 am
I tried to reseat the inverter board by disconnecting both cables from it and then putting them back in. It did not fix the problem.
Do you have any other suggestions?
September 4th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Ricky,
I still think that it could be a connection issue. You’ve mentioned in the comment 220 that sometimes you can get the screen back to normal when you jiggle the screen. At the next step I would probably reseat the video coble on the system board and on the back of the LCD screen, just in case. Also check the lid close switch, it should move freely. If the FL inverter goes bad, I don’t think that you can get it back to normal by jiggling the screen.
BTW, very often when the inverter is going bad, you can get the backlight back to normal for a moment if you tap a few times on the lid close switch. Try it and see if you can get the backlight flashing. If it flashes when you tap on the switch, then you might have a bad inverter board.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Luke,
Most modern laptops have a video card integrated into the system board. Some models have shared video memory (they use a part of the main memory), some models have a dedicated video memory. Laptops with dedicated video memory perform better then laptops with shared memory and they are more expensive. You should go with a dedicated video memory if you are looking for performance (gaming laptops). If you are going to use the laptop just for basic operations (Word, Excel, Internet, etc…) then shared video memory would be good enough. I don’t know if there is any advantage to buy a laptop with a removable video card. A laptop video card itself is pretty expensive and not a lot of models implement removable video cards, so you have a limited choice and if you need to buy a new video card it would cost you half price of a new motherboard.
September 10th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
i have a problem with my laptop screen it total black but went i hook it up to my husband laptop that the same model as my it works fine.I can hook it up to a external monitor it works fine.i have try the LCD lid close switch and nothing.does anyone know why the laptop acting this way.i also try updating the driver and the whole system and i try uninstalling the video card and restalling it and nothing.
September 10th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Christina,
, so try to install the FL inverter board from you husband’s laptop into your laptop. See if you can light up the screen.
Your LCD screen is TOTALLY black or you still can see a dim image on it? Take a closer look at the screen when you restart the laptop. Do you see any changes at all?
If you still can see an image, it could be just a bad FL inverter board. It looks like you know how to take it apart
September 11th, 2006 at 1:52 am
I have a HP pavilion zv5000 and my display is showing green where white should be and red where black should be. ie. when I reboot and get the windows boot screen, it should be a black background but its red wih this problem. I hooked it up to a desktop monitor and the display is fine. I bought a new display and that didn’t fix it either. It intermits back to normal for a while and then eventually screws up again. Please help! Thanks in advance!
September 11th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
I have a fujitsu Lifebook S6210. I just replaced the LCD and inverter, but still don’t have a backlight. I looked for a lid close toggle switch(pin) like you mentioned but couldn’t find one. Would anyone know where it might be located on this particular model?
September 12th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Xxloganxx,
Have you tried to reseat the video cable on the system board? Here’s maintenance manual for HP Pavilion zv5000 Notebook PC. The video cable connector is pictured on the page 148 (5-41). Disconnect the cable from the system board and connect it back.
It’s hard to say witch part is causing the problem; it could be a bad video cable, a bad video connector on the motherboard or just a loose connection between the video cable and the motherboard (I hope the last one). Try reseating the video cable first.
September 12th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
James,
I’m not familiar with Fujitsu Lifebook, never worked on any. I guess this laptop might have a magnetic lid close switch. Usually a magnet is located somewhere under the LCD screen bezel and the switch itself under the palmrest. The lid close switch is activated, when you close the lid and the magnet gets close to the switch.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:42 am
I would like to disable the switch that turns off the backlight. Removing the switch, is that an option? I attempted cleaning it, it didn’t have any effect. I’ve already changed the power inverter and the bulb. Occassionally, the screen will flash on for a few seconds when I play with the switch. That’s why I would like to just eliminate it altogether. Please advise and I will be looking forward to hearing from you.
Joe
September 13th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I too have the Fujitsu lifebook S6210 and have the exact same problem. I can turn on the computer and hook it up to an external monitor and it works fine. As a matter of fact the screen flashes a little when I turn it on and also when switching it to external monitor and back. the image on the screen is feint. My question is kind of twofold. 1) Is there some sort of way to permenantly enable the backlight to always stay on so that the switch (you said its possibly magnetic) is disabled? (perhaps in bios) 2) If that is not possible are there any ways to possibly fix this problem without getting the switch replaced? (I want to fix it but I am currently not making as much money as when i bought the laptop and do not have the cash to get it fixed) thanks for your help (if you have any)
September 13th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Joe,
I think that removing the switch is an option, but you have to know what you are doing. Most likely it’s not enough just remove the switch and it’s necessary to connect some traces. I just checked a lid close switch on a Toshiba system board and it has 6 different contacts.
September 13th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Zachary,
In most cases the laptop backlight fails because of a bad FL inverter board. With a failed inverter board a laptop behaves exactly as you described. A lid close switch failure is not very common and usually I place it at the end of my troubleshooting steps. I would try to reconnect the inverter board cables, just to exclude a loose connection problem. If it doesn’t help, I would go with the FL inverter board replacement.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:12 am
If thats the case are there any kind of precautions I need to take prior to ripping the LCD screen open to make sure the connections are sound? Actually heck, looking at it I dont see any screws or anything like that holding the screen on. According to the previous diagram on the front page it looks like the connection you are talking about is behind the actual LCD screen itself, but how to I take that apart to take a look? I’m kind of a computer dummy so please excuse the question if it sounds stupid
September 14th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Zachary,
I cannot help you with your Fujitsu Livebook, I’ve never worked on Fujitsu laptops. Check out my guides for Toshiba laptops on this site: irisvista.com. Go through a few display disassembly guides and you’ll get an idea how to take it apart. I don’t think that it would be much different for Fujitsu laptops.
September 14th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
I have an IBM A31p. I dropped it while it was in the bag from not too high. Now I am geting a black screen but if I look carefully, sometime I can see a faint image.
Also when I press the Alt. key, the computer beeps. I cannot use Ctrl+Alt+Del anymore.
Can it be a BIOS problem at all? Does the beeping tell me anything?
September 17th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Anirban,
I don’t think that your problem is related to BIOS. If the laptop was dropped and doesn’t work properly anymore, most likely the problem is related to a loose connection. It’s necessary to open up the laptop and reseat loose connections.
In your case I would check connectors on the FL inverter board, located inside the display assembly. After you reseat connectors (unplug cables and plug them back), you might get the backlight back. I hope you didn’t damage the backlight bulb, when you dropped the laptop. If the backlight is damaged, the repair would be more expensive.
Also, I would check if the keyboard is properly connected to the motherboard. You’ll have to lift up the keyboard and reseat the keyboard cable on the motherboard.
Here are IBM hardware maintenance manuals.
September 18th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
This is a good service, thanks for keeping a free public access of useful information.
I have a satellite P10-S409, out of blue, the screen went blan/black. There is nothing that I can see on the screen, there is a tiny shad of backlght that increase and decrease little bit by clicking Fn+ F6 and F7.
I tried all the function keey combination, thinking that the key board is messed up or accidently wrong keeys were pressed. Nothing happened, I conneceted to the extra monitor (my desktop), I have a perfect video and I am using my laptop conntected to the extra monitor. It is not comfortable, but for emergency, It is working now.
What do you think would have happened, the inverter or LCD?. Is there any other tips or troubleshooting I can do, before I take this to a repair center to be get ripped for the repair?.
thanks,
SM
September 18th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
SM,
It tells me that there is nothing wrong with the FL inverter and the backlight bulb.
If the external monitor works fine, then most likely the system board (video card) is not damaged and the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly.
I think that you might have a bad screen, a bad video cable or a loose connection between the video cable and the screen or the motherboard.
If I would get this laptop for repair, first of all I would open up the display and checked if the video cable is seated properly. It looks like the data is not coming from the system board to the screen. Check the video cable connection on the back of the screen first. Then check the connection on the motherboard. If all connections are fine, I would replace the video cable next and finally the screen.
You can find a link to my Toshiba disassembly guides in the “Links” on the right side. I don’t have a guide for Satellite P10, but I have created a few guides for other models. Taking apart LCD assembly is kinda similar for most Toshiba laptops.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:17 am
I have an HP zv5000z, a surge went through the s-video cable from my TV. The Internal and external monitor(s) dont work. I have a feeling the video card is completely shot, which would mean I would need to get the system board replaced completely.
Does anyone know, from experience, how much it would be to get the board replaced out of warranty?
September 20th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Mark,
I think the labor charge would be somewhere between $100-$140. It will include the motherboard replacement and testing. Now about the motherboard itself. There are a few boards for ZV5000, it depends of the configuration of your laptop. You can find all boards listed on the page 171 of the maintenance and service guide for HP Pavilion zv5000 notebooks. In the same manual you’ll find instructions for replacing the main board, just in case you want to do it yourself.
To find out how much would it cost you to buy a replacement motherboard, I searched on eBay for “zv5000 motherboard” and found it on sale for about $300. If you buy the same motherboard through a repair shop, they will bump up the price and it would be around $500. So, if you take it to a repair shop, you are looking approximately at $600 -$700 plus tax. That’s a rough estimate, but you’ll get an idea.
September 21st, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Hi there! Last week i open my laptop, since it was displaying vertical lines. But i made a critical error: i forgot to take out the battery. When i was testing the connections on the display cable, my screw driver touch on the top of the display cable (it’s made of metal) and the GFX cooler. Then a big spark came out flying, and the lcd lights went off. Since the, they never turned on again. the lights in the lcd are ok, since i’ve tested with a power inverter from an desktop cumputer tunning kit. On the DC part of the lcd power inverter there’s some Voltage (Tested with a Voltimeter), and the power inverter fuse its ok, but there’s no high voltage output.
Other thing i’ve notice: when the computer restarts, the light turns on for almost a second, then come off…. So, on booting some of the power can reach the light.
I’ve tested also switch who turnos of the ligth when you close the laptop lid. it seems ok.
Can anyone help with these? Thx.
Miguel
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:19 am
[...] Here’s my previous post related to a laptop video problems: How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems. [...]
September 25th, 2006 at 4:25 am
I have a problem with my laptop, when i switch it on it gives the LED lights and then it switches itself off.
Help???
September 25th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Like I said before. I replaced the LCD first then the Inverter but still no backlight. If I use a flashlight and point it at the screen I do see windows barely, and the external monitor hookup works just fine too. Should I use a voltmeter to see if the inverter is atleast working? I know it produces high voltage and the meter I have goes up to 1000 volts. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Use the email address provided. I’ll pay $ if someone can seriously help. again it’s a Fujitsu Lifebook S6210.
September 25th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
email: shockwa2@pacbell.net
September 26th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Bizza,
Check if the cooling fan starts when you turn on the laptop. Do you get any activity on startup (HDD start spinning, DVD drive makes some noise, etc…) at all?
September 27th, 2006 at 9:43 am
I have been very frustrated. I have contacted Dell and Epson both. There tech people are not very helpful. This is the problem. We own an Epson PowerLite S1 LCD and a Dell Inspiron 9400. We previously owned a Dell Lattitude.
When using the Dell Lattitude with the Epson LCD everything was fine. The image was clear but when using the Dell Inspiron the image is not clear. The grid is magnified to the point that it distorts the image. I have messed with the focus, the tracking and whatever else I could think of on the projector. I have changed the pixels on the laptop. It just changes the size of the picture not the quality of the image. We have the laptop set at 1280X768. The projector’s native resolution is fixed at 800X600. Can you help? Like I said Dell and Epson have been of no help.
September 28th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Sorry Colleen,
I don’t work with projectors at all. Cannot help.
September 30th, 2006 at 10:37 am
[...] Read my other posts related to laptop video issues: How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong? [...]
October 1st, 2006 at 6:05 pm
This shows up both on the LCD and on an external monitor
http://www.dlogan.net/screen.jpg
Its on an Compaq 1800 Notebook. I am assuming that the onboard video is likely dead *sigh*, but would love a second opinion. Sometimes everything loads great. Also, when it looks like this, I can sometimes move the mouse around and it will redraw properly behind the area where the mouse has moved. I don’t appear to have any issues when I have simply text displaying. Any chance it could at lest be heat related? Memory passes Mem test. Thanks!
October 4th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
I’ve a dell inspiron 9300, horizontal white & grey lines apear in a vertical stack along the left hend side of the screen. The lines appear to be above the picture and images can be seen (distorted) on the part of the screen. changes and movement on screen also affects their spacing and colour. My first guess is that the problem is related to connections. Any further advice or ideas would be greatly appreachiated,
DaVe
October 5th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Doug,
I think you are right. Looks like a video card problem. In most cases, when a bad video output appears on the external monitor too, the system board/ video card must be replaced. You mentioned that the laptop has an onboard video card, so you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.
Apparently you have a problem with the video memory. If you laptop uses a share video memory (a part of the main memory), I would probably try installing another memory stick. I would try it just in case, even though the main memory passed Memtest. You can do that only the main memory is not integrated into the motherboard and both memory slots are accessible.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:01 am
DaVe,
Usually when you have a bad connection, it would affect the video output on the entire screen, not just on a part of the screen.
Check the video output on an external monitor to make sure that it’s not the video card problem. If you have the same lines on the external monitor, it’s the motherboard/vide card problem.
October 6th, 2006 at 5:03 am
I must say that your page is one of the best i’ve seen yet. very well laid out and comprehensive.
Anyhow, I have a thinkpad t23 and dropped it by mistake. Now the backlight comes on at first but then goes off after a few seconds but you can still see the faint windows logo. If i depress and release lid close switch the screen come back on but then goes back to faint after a few seconds again so i know the lid close switch seems to be working ok. I reseated the connectors from the lcd ribbon and the lcd inverter first but the problem persisted. I then replaced the LCD inverter itself and still have the problem. I am considering replacing the LCD ribbon next and if that doesn’t work perhaps the LCD screen. I really have no clue what the problem is and I’d rather not spend the money to replace anything else (especially not the screen) if the problem lies elsewhere. Any thoughts?
October 6th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Osi,
Did you reseat the video cable connector on the motherboard? You can access it if you remove the keyboard. Try it first before you ordered any parts.
October 8th, 2006 at 7:27 am
reseated all connectors and still no change. screen stays on a few seconds and then goes off but the dim image remains. I noticed that the bottom part of the LCD screen is brighter than the top part from the backlight. Also notice a faint buzzing noise when the lcd is on for those few seconds. Any ideas on what would cause this?
October 8th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Osi,
Can you check if the buzzing noise is coming from the FL inverter board? May be you installed a bad FL inverter?
I don’t think that the video cable was damaged when you dropped the laptop. Of course, it’s possible but very unlikely. If a new FL inverter will not fix the problem, I would probably blame the LCD screen. Apparently, the backlight bulb (part of the screen) has been damaged.
It’s normal. The backlight bulb is located on the button of the screen, that’s why the bottom part of the screen seems to be brighter. On some screens you barely can see any difference between the top and bottom sides, on some screens the difference is very noticeable. Usually you can see the difference only on startup when the background is black, until the image appears.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:30 am
Hi,
))
T
A million thanks for this great blog and all this useful info!
I have read though most of the comments, but I did not seem to find a problem quite like mine, so here it is:
The LCD of my IBM T21 is black quite often, you can see the images dimly and it works fine with an external monitor, just like for many other people here, what is strange is when and how it goes off.
A few months ago it started coming back from hibernation / turn-off with a black screen. I can’t to anything to make it work, no shutting off/tapping the lid close button helps. Then it comes back miraculously (sometimes I have the feeling that moving and bending the display back and forth helps, but I am not sure, most of the time it comes back without me touching it. I wanted to check the cables and the connections for months, I just couldn’t get myself round to take the whole thing apart yet…), and it works fine for weeks, then again, I turn it on and it gives the black screen, and then it heals, etc… it is getting worse, lately the screen flickered and then went off when the notebook was turned on (came back in a few minutes).
Do you think it can be the inverter?
Thanks again, and forgive me the lenghty description.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:53 am
Sorry, just a few more comments:
, there is no bringing it back for even a fraction of a second.
In a way, this whole phenomenon has nothing to do with turning the notebook on and off, because when the screen works (i.e. lit), I can turn it on and off, it works all right; and when it is in this ‘black fit’
In an other way it does, as most of the time I get the black screen when I turn the notebook on, it was only once or twice that the light went out while it was on.
October 11th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Orsi,
Here are IBM hardware maintenance manuals for most IBM laptops. These manuals have instructions for laptop disassembly.
When the screen goes black, can you see any image on the screen at all? Take a closer look because it would be very dim. If you can see the image, then I would try replacing the inverter board. We also noticed that with Thinkpad T21 a video failure very often is related to the video cable, so if you decide to open up the laptop yourself you can swap the cable too. Replacing the video cable is more complicated then replacing the inverter board. I would go with the inverter first.
Luckily, both parts – the video cable and the inverter board are not expensive. After a quick search on eBay, I found the video cable for $35 and the inverter board for $10.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
I have checked my software and ran video on an external screen so i still maintain i have a hard wear problem, I have a pic posted @ http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin.....2055001900 . if anyone has seen this problem before or knows how to fix it i would appreciate any help
DaVe
October 14th, 2006 at 9:30 am
cj2600,
After a few days waiting the new LCD inverter came and sitll nothing. You can actually see the faint image once the screen goes black so i don’t think there is anything wrong with the lcd or backlight. I am now going to try and replace the video cable. I hope this is the problem. i will keep you posted.
Osi
October 20th, 2006 at 7:30 am
ok i installed the new ribbon and still same problem. I don’t understand what could be causing the problem since i’ve switched out the lcd ribbon and lcd inverter. Could it be the LCD screen even?
October 20th, 2006 at 9:51 am
ok. Just a few days ago I opened my Compaq Presario R3000 after it sat in hibernate mode for about a week during a move. Bad idea leaving it in hibernate, I know. I turned on the laptop, received a clear screen with great color, than all of a sudden it went blank. I restarted the computer and could only see a very DIM view of the “windows” logon screen and the folders on my desktop once I logged in. When I connect to an external monitor it looks beautiful! No color issues or anything. I tried everything with the hibernate button near the hinge, I reseatted the monitor cable to see if it was a bad connection and still nothing!.. The only thing driving me crazy is the fact that I am still able to see an image, but it is very dim and dull. I am confused as to whether it is the LCD itself, the backlight, or the lcd inverter that needs to be replaced.. Please help me!
October 20th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Osi,
then it must be a bad backlight bulb (it’s a part of the screen). In the post 256 you mentioned that you dropped the laptop. I think you damaged the backlight bulb when you dropped it.
I would try find a service center who can replace the backlight bulb, it should be much cheaper then buying a new screen.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Molo,
Most likely it’s just a failed inverter board and I would try reseating the inverter cables first and if the problem still appears, I would replace the inverter board. You can find a new FL inverter board on the Internet for about $30, it’s not very expensive to try it and you have a good chance to fix the issue with the backlight.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Hi! It seems that my inverter blew up. since i live in Portugal, does anyone know where can i buy a new one? (e-bay, maybe?)
thx
October 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
My Fujitsu Amilo M3438G LCD panel has gone blank! The laptop boots up fine, but the panel is blank. Upon close inspection, I can just about see the Windows XP login screen, although this is extremely faint. All is fine on an external monitor. I have noticed that pressing the Fn+F4 key combination to switch to an external monitor lights up the LCD for a fraction of a second. I assume this is a problem with the backlight not triggering when it is supposed to. I have taken the back off it but there is nothing obviously loose.
From CJ2600:
It looks like the backlight issue mentioned in this comment is a very common problem. I’ve decided to publish this comment and a possible solution as a post so more people can see and benefit from it.
You’ll find this post here:
My LCD panel has gone blank! The laptop boots up fine, but the panel is blank.
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:30 am
I have an HP ZV5000. The external video works fine but the LCD has only a very, very faint image. If I use the hotkey to switch from the external monitor to the LCD I get a very brief bright image on the LCD, then it goes nearly out as before. Is this the inverter board?
Thanks a lot.
Paul
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Paul,
I think you are right. Looks like a failed FL inverter board. Likely, it’s cheap and you can find it on eBay for about $20.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Greetings,
I have a Toshiba M45-S331, about 15 months of use.
1. It will not power off normally – every time I shut down, I get to the “Windows is shutting down” screen but ultimately have press and hold the power button to get it to power off.
2. Further, unless I wait a period of time 15-30 mins before restarting, it gives me a narrowed (compressed) left-justified Toshiba logo screen and then halts. Wait a little longer, and she boots fine.
3. Finally, in Windows there is an intermittent “USB Device Not Recognized” error that comes and goes in spurts; the device manager lists “Unknown Device” in the USB Controllers section right below the Intel controllers (for Video??) and the Device Instance ID is: USB\VID_0000&PID_0000\5&1D60131D&0&1. Does VID mean Video? There are NO peripherals or cables connected to the machine.
In trying to identify the issue, I installed a new hard drive because I had some bad sectors showing. I loaded to that a known good backup image from several months ago and the problems didn’t change; so I concluded it is not a corrupt driver or hibernation/standby software.
2. I was considering flashing the BIOS as a next step. What do you think?
3. Does it sound like this could be a video hardware related problem and if so what other tests can I try at home to determine the source?
Thanks,this site is the tops!!
October 24th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Dawn,
I don’t like this part:
it sounds like a hardware problem.
The laptop displays a narrowed logo even before the operating system is loaded, so it’s not related to the software. It indicates either a hardware problem (probably motherboard/video card) or there are some issues with the BIOS. What about an external monitor, the Toshiba logo is displayed incorrectly too?
I found that there are a lot of BIOS updates for Satellite M45-S331. Probably I would try reflashing/updating the BIOS first. NOTE: there are a few different versions available for downloads, make sure to download the correct one. Version 1.90 says for Intel Display Adapter only, and version 2.00 says for Intel video. For me “Intel video” and “Intel Display Adapter” sounds the same but I have no idea why Toshiba wrote it differently. May be you should call Toshiba for more explanations because if you flash the BIOS with a wrong version, you might get BIG trouble. Sorry, I cannot recommend witch version to choose.
VID is Vendor ID and PID is Product ID. It’s not for video, it’s for USB ports. When you have issues with video, you usually listed in display adapters section.
November 4th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Im having a massive problem with my out of service Dell Inspiron 9300.
About 2 months ago, it developed a 2″ strip from the top to the bottom of the screen, about 2/3′rds of the way over, when you boot the machine, this appears as a white strip, when you use the computer, if you use a white background you cant tell.
Tonight, on the opposite side of the screen, there is a 2″ strip, and its flickers with lines in it… I have reseated the video cable but it still does it, please help me… I love my laptop and dont want to throw it away
November 5th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Jaz Dean,
Sounds like you have a failing LCD screen and you’ll have to replace the screen if you want to get rid of the vertical strips.
November 6th, 2006 at 12:21 am
One more thing I thought of, for a while, when I turn the computer on, it would not turn the screen on…. DELL had me unplugging the video cable from the motherboard (the one that runs into the LCD)… do you think that maybe it could be the inverter?
November 6th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Hello. First of all, thank you for being so helpful. This is one of those places in which I feel people want to share the knowledge, and hardware is not something where this theory is usually applied much. Now, on to my question.
I have an HP zv5000 laptop computer whose LCD screen repeatedly turns off. It can be turned back on pushing the lid close switch.
This happens whenever the notebook moves suddenly. For instance, laying it on a desk, hitting any keyboard keys just a little harder than “really soft”, or -more evidently-, (softly) tapping the lower center of the screen.
It looks like the FL inverter board is failing. What do you think?
I disassembled the screen and tried to reconnect the cables in case they were loose, but the problem persists.
Please tell me if I should check anything else before buying a new inverter board.
The repair manual says it needs a 354873-001 board. Am I really restricted to that specific model? Is it manufactured by HP? Do you happen to know where one can usually get those in a non-first world country such as mine? (Argentina)
Thanks in advance, and keep up the good work!
November 6th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
I have a toshiba satellite A-55. I have no video at all, (not even faint with a flashlight), but do have video on the external monitor. However, the letters on the external monitor change from red to blue to green when I tilt and put slight pressure on the laptop screen. Is this a bad video card? Also, is the video integrated on this model. Thanks for you help!
November 7th, 2006 at 12:05 am
Jaz Dean,
Yep, it could be a bad inverter board. Make sure that you still can see a faint image on the screen when the backlight is off. If you can, then most likely a new inverter will fix the backlight problem. Likely Dell inverters are not very expensive, you can find one for about $30. Here’s a service manual for your Dell, it’ll show how to access and replace the inverter board.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:36 am
George Hamilton,
Can you make the backlight to fail if you tap on the inverter, not on the keyboard or the lower center of the screen?
It’s possible that the video cable connection to the motherboard is loose. I would try reseating the video cable on the motherboard before buying a new inverter.
Just recently I had a similar issue with Satellite P25.
Here’s the problem. The backlight goes off when you move the display. I opened up the display and found that the cables that go from the screen to the inverter board were jammed between the screen and the hinge. The shielding on one cable was cracked, exposing the wire. Then the screen moves, the wire touches the hinge shortening the inverter and the backlight goes off. The backlight comes back when you tap on the lid close switch.
I put some electrical tape over the cracked cable and the problem was fixed.
So, take a look on the cables inside the display assembly.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Woojie,
Can you bring the video to the internal screen if you press on Fn+F5 keys. Hold down Fn and at the same time press F5. This key combination helps to switch between internal and external screens.
Yeah, it could be a bad video card. The card is integrated into the system board and if it’s bad you’ll have to replace the board.
You might try to disconnect the LCD video cable from the motherboard and test the laptop with an external monitor. Can you make the letters to change color when you press on the top cover (when LCD is removed)?
Here’s Satellite A55 disassembly help.
November 7th, 2006 at 7:02 am
I had same prob as u are my lcd has faint lines thought the vga had a problem or probably had a hardware malfuntion so I did try to play wit it but cant find the prob however after about 2 weeks it just sort it out itself got me wondering whats the prob with it
November 8th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Thank you for hosting such a informative site. I had bought 2nd hand Panasonic CF-L2 laptop, which I accidently dropped, and since then there is only faint display. I taked it to repair guy and he told me the CCFT tube is broken and there is no spare parts available. As I went through ur website, there is no problem with LCD lid close switch. So, there must be problem with FL inverter. Please give me advise on how can I repair my laptop, or any other information, as I had spend a fortune on it.
November 9th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
hi mate i would be grateful if you could give me some guildence on how to go about fixing my laptop. i dropped it recently (only a light tap on the ground) and the screen now only lights up but no image. Connected the laptop to an external moniter and everything works fine. The internal screen has no cracks or visable damge. Its the toshiba sp10-304 any help would be much appreciated. thanks for your time.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
I have a “Dell Inspiron 9300 Laptop” and the problem Im having is the screen is blank when booting Windows XP as well as when booting up the System but if I mess with the button which switches between external and internal display it works only when loading from outside of windows. The mean reason for the problem was because I bought a New TFT to plug into the external port. Then I installed the driver but for the wrong TFT which was the internal one and accidentally set the resolution higher then it supported and now it won’t reset back so Im unable to use the monitor but it is clearly lit. When I am able to get it to display stuff on screen out of windows the content showing is clearly visible, so if you could provide some incite as to fixing the problem it would be greatly appreciated.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
chuoc lam,
I think that you might have a loose video cable, probably it popped up from the connector when you dropped the laptop. The video cable has connectors on both ends. One end connects to the motherboard, you’ll have to remove the keyboard to access it. The second end connects to the back of the LCD screen, you’ll have to open the display assembly and reseat the cable. I don’t have a complete disassembly guide for this model, but if you go through other guides on my Toshiba laptop disassembly site, click here. You’ll understand how access the video cable. Take a look at Satellite P25 guide, it’ll show how to lift up the keyboard and take apart the display. I would try reseating the cable on the motherboard first, because it’s much easier to lift up the keyboard then open up the display. If it doesn’t help, the display assembly will be next.
November 10th, 2006 at 2:11 am
cj2600 thanks for the advice mate. I will give that a go when i get back from work.
November 10th, 2006 at 6:30 am
hi mate its me again. i opened up the laptop using the guide provided and i checked over all the connections already and there doesnt seem to be any loose connectors. i opened the one behind the moniter and underneath the keyboard and they were both secured. Any other suggestions that may help? thanks
November 10th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
chuoc lam,
if it’s not related to a loose connection then probably you’ve damaged the screen. I don’t think it’s the motherboard problem because you still have external video. The only way to test it to find another LCD screen and plug it in instead of yours.
Did actually you reseat connectors or just made a visual inspection? If you didn’t try it.
November 11th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I wanted to say a big thanks for saving me big bucks. I have the Satellite A70 and the screen all of a sudden went terribly dark. I saw your guide about checking the lid close switch and fl inverter cables. after pressing the switch a hundred times it came on stronger and stronger until it stayed on. i took out the fl cables and put them back in and the two together have solved the problem. Now I can at least sell the stupid thing. I hate this laptop, it has caused more problems than anything I’ve ever owned. The grief was unbelievable.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:04 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite P35 and have
the same vericle lines problem. I has gotten progressively
worse over time (more lines). External monitor shows
the display with no problems.
If I am going to replace the cable or the monitor,
where do I find instructions for taking the machine
apart, specs for the type of cable to buy, and a
place to buy the cable?
thanks!
November 16th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Hi, cj2600
I have a sony laptop pcg-v505bl, the 12.1″lcd shows partially flickering image (about 6″x2″ rectangular shape) in the low right corner. the other part of the lcd shows image fine. I checked this forum, and did not find similar situation like mine, I did open the LCD cover, checked the LCD back connector(pull out and put back in), and I did a full harddrive reinstall from the recovery cds, but I did not solve the LCD problem.
by the way, the LCD shows stable image sometimes(10% of the time) but with a partial horizontal line (about 6″) on the low right corner, also I found a few dead spot on low right corner on LCD if background is dark.
Any advice? thanks!
November 16th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Zman,
I haven’t created a guide for taking apart Satellite P35 display assembly yet, take a look at Satellite A65 guide for example. It has the same general steps.
I think it’s not a cable problem. Most likely the LCD itself is bad.
November 16th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Tony,
Have you checked the video output on an external monitor? Does it also has the same flickering image in the low right corner or the external video is fine?
I’m not really sure what’s wrong. I’ve never seen such problem before. If the external video is fine, then I would assume it’s a problem with the screen.
November 17th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
I have a dell 700m. One day all the sudden the back light won’t turn on. I can see the image if I apply light onto the screen. The back light will turn on most of the time when I just start the computer or come back from standby. If I am lucky, it will stay on for a long time, else it will be black again. I was quite sure it was the inverter. I can hear the sound of electic when it fail to turn up the light. So I went to ebay and bought a lcd inverter. But the thing is, it is still not working! What are some other possbilities? Or I got a broken one again??
November 17th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
The external monitor shows image fine, only the laptop Lcd shows partial flickering image. what should I do next? maybe replacing the LCD screen?
November 21st, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Kyle,
Man, sound like a bad inverter board to me. I would probably try another one before making any conclusions.
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Tony,
So it’s not a software issue. The external video displays normal video so most likely it’s not a faulty video card.
I’ve never seen the video cable causing a problem like yours. If I would guess, I would say a bad LCD screen.
November 22nd, 2006 at 7:50 am
I am searching for replacement lcd on internet. one question about the LCD compatibility, I found one on ebay, same size 12″ lcd, about same position connector, but a different model (sony z505)
which is made by hitachi, mine(sony v505) made by toshiba, can I still use that lcd since the size and connection is about the same?
November 26th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Tony,
I would be very careful with buying a LCD screen from another model. Even though it has the same size, it might have a different connector for the video cable, different connector for the FL inverter board and different screw hole location on the side.. I would search for the original screen.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:28 am
Hi you seem to know all things laptop so maybe you can even help me. I have a dell 9300 and the backlight works but no image. External digital and analog works fine, I checked the cable and both ends have been re-seated but still nothing. Is it the screen or maybe the cable? It’s never been dropped though I did have to replace the front speakers but that was weeks ago… I’m at a loss I can’t afford a screen right now so please do so amazing wizard stuff and please make it an easy cheap fix!
Thanks in advance,
David
November 27th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Hi
I have a dell laptop and the problem is that whenever i start it the screen starts flickering. When i place the screen down and pull it up, the screen is normal but after 4-5 minutes it again starts to flicker. So is the problem with the backlight or inverter, or is there something else problem. Please help me with this.
Thanks,
Riddhi
November 29th, 2006 at 12:12 am
David,
I wish I could. You went through basic troubleshooting steps already. The external video works fine, so most likely the problem is not related to the system board. You reseated the video cable, so it’s not a loose connection. From here I can see only two things. Either a bad screen or a faulty video cable. Yeah, I’m not a wizard. I would go with the cable first, you can find it here for about $25.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Riddhi,
How it flickers?
If the display is loosing the backlight for a while, then probably it’s a bad FL inverter board. In this case I would try reseating the inverter board cables first and if it doesn’t help I would replace the inverter.
If the backlight is fine, but the display is loosing the image then it could be a loose or bad video cable. In this case check if the video cable connectors are seated properly.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:15 am
Weird Laptop Display problem: I’ve a HP NC6120 notebook which displayed strange behavior lately. When I start-up Windows XP Pro, I can logon and work for mostly 30 minutes or so. Sometimes this is longer, sometimes this period is shorter around 5 minutes. And then my display blacks out (still showing a faint image).
So I thought the back light was broken. I called HP support and they told me my warranty had expired and replacing the display would cost me €550 ex tax. Then I tried to figure out if it was really the back light. I noticed that whenever the back light turns off and I shut down my notebook. If I turn it on again the back light always lights up so I figured it may be some software problem.
So I decided to reinstall Windows XP Pro after reinstalling everything worked great again. And I used my notebook for a weekend. After this I decided to install auto updates. After installing the critical update my display started to black out again (still showing a faint image)
I got really disappointed and decided to install UBUNTU 6.10. After installing everything worked great. And still does. I would rather use windows xp because of some programs but I don’t dare to because of the problem showing up again.
My question is: Do you have any clue why my notebook display back light is falling out only when I use Windows?
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!
November 30th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Hi,
I have a Toshiba Tecra S1 laptop. I turned the computer upside down to look at something on the back and when i turned it back around the screen has thin verticle lines going through it and even the mouse is followed has a small box around it depending on the colour of the page (on a white page, everything is normal except taskbar and top display). I connected my laptop to an external monitor and it is just about the same as my laptop. I believe this means something is wrong with the system board or video card from reading other responses on this site. I was planning on selling this laptop before this happened and it sells for 600-800 AUD on ebay. It is out of warranty and not sure what can be done to fix it. Is it worth taking it to a professional to fix it?
December 2nd, 2006 at 11:27 pm
HELP!! I have an HP dv2020, this one is 3 weeks od. I’m experiencing monitor toggle problems. This is my second laptop of the same model with the same problem, the first I returned for a replacement. HP tech support seems to not understand the problem, let alone be able to solve it, and claims this has not been an issue with other customers. Perhaps it IS just me, but I wanted to get some more advanced thoughts before I take this laptop back. I use the function/f4 to goggle from my laptop screen to my monitor and have had no issues doing this on a regular basis. A houseguest disconnected my laptop to plug his into my monitor, and then when he was finished replaced my computer back where it was reconnecting the monitor. I believe he did NOT toggle back to the laptop screen, as I do, when disconnecting. The bottom line is that now my toggle is stuck. I have a backlight on my laptop monitor that was not happening before as well. When I press the function/f4, the monitor screen goes black, but then flashes back on. There is no change in my laptop display…I simply have a blank screen with the backlight running. Please help me!! I can’t find this issue anywhere online and HP has been NO help at all. Thank you.
December 3rd, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Diederik van Luijk,
Not really. If it’s a hardware problem it shouldn’t be OS related. Check out if there is an update for the BIOS. Download and install the latest version and test again. May be there is a conflict between some Windows updates and the version of the BIOS you are running now?
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Todd Rennie,
Here’s a disassembly guide I’ve created for taking apart Toshiba Satellite S1. As you can see there’s no separate video card in this model. The video card is integrated into the system board. According to the description of the problem you provided in the comment 307 you might have an issue with the onboard video card.
That’s strange that the video failed after you turned it over. May be you have something loose inside the case and it shorted a circuit on the motherboard? That’s just a guess.
Is it worth taking it to a professional? It depends, if you have a faulty motherboard most likely they will offer you to replace the board and it will be very expensive unless you can find a cheap motherboard.
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Darlene,
I think it shouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t switch back to the laptop screen before unplugging the external monitor.
What if you start the laptop with the external monitor, will it display just fine? What if you use Fn+F4 while the external monitor is attached, you still cannot get display video on the laptop screen?
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:30 pm
c/2600, Thanks for the suggestion, but I’ve already tried that multiple times. The laptop won’t even flash…it’s just steady backlight.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Darlene,
You can try this. Enter the BIOS setup screen and set the BIOS to defaults (if there is such option, on my HP it’s F9 key). I believe on HP laptops you have to press F10 on startup to enter the setup screen. If it doesn’t help then I would probably take it back to HP guys.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Thanks for the suggestions cj2600. I also think something is loose inside the case as it suddenly stopped working when i turned it upside down and i think maybe the video cable of the laptop jusat fell out? Do you think that is a possibility? Can you tell me how many steps on your guide i will have to do to be able to replug in the video cable and where exactly it is situated in the laptop and the pictures you display? Thanks
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Todd,
The video cable connector is located under the keyboard strip. I believe the keyboard strip is secured by 2 screws on the bottom of the laptop, just remove all screws located under the strip and then remove the strip as it shown on the step 4-5. On the step 7 you can see the video cable connector.
You also can lift up the keyboard and check if there is something loose under the keyboard. It’s not necessary to disconnect the keyboard just flip it over on the palmrest. Turn on the laptop and slightly press on the motherboard when it’s on. See if you can get normal video output by pressing on the motherboard. If you can, then at least you know that something is wrong with the motherboard itself, probably a bad soldering somewhere.
December 5th, 2006 at 4:48 am
Hi there,
i have a toshiba satellite pro m10, and a couple of months ago it started doing the scrambled screen routine. It seems totally random, but happens after a while (sometimes after 2 minutes of booting up, sometimes after 4 hours of using the machine). All sorts of wierd noise appears on the screen, made of different colors. It happens on an external screen too.
Usually, it happens sooner if i use directx (play a dvd, it starts happening inside the directdraw window), and have resolution / hw acceleration at max. But that might be just my feeling, as i said, it is random. Tried swapping the memory modules (in case it’s a shared memory issue). Also tried cleaning the cable work for the lcd connection, but no help.
I installed linux on it, just to see what happens, and the first boot after i installed the nvidia drivers on it, it crashed the same way.
The scrambled image usually instantly hangs the machine. Sometimes windows can recover, and set itself to safe mode (which, every now and then, carries the artifacts over).
I suspect this is a gfx card issue…. would that mean a full board swap?
thanks,
laszlo
December 5th, 2006 at 6:44 am
hello dear loptop repair help,
i have find a problem with my loptop when i watchd a video
sudanly the back light is gon and i cant see anything claerly if there is anyhting that you can recomand or advice i well be glad for your help thanks
Kambiz Afshar
December 9th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Hey!
I have a T30 that’s been acting up lately. Once in a while (at random times, but getting increasingly more periodic), the screen gets garbled and freezes. At this point, the entire system is non-responsive. I can’t even use the keyboard to force it to hibernate or sleep. the only option is to hold down the power button till the computer shuts off.
Often when i turn on the computer again, there is still no display (i.e. the screen is completely black). It takes a few shots at turning it on before it actually gets a display. It’s not a matter of the computer overheating, as sometimes it’ll turn on right away, sometimes, i may leave it for an hour and try again and it still doesnt’ work.
I have a feeling that it MAY be the cable, but i’m wondering if anyone can confirm this before i go out and order the cable and spend the time to replace it.
Thanks in advance.
Neel
December 10th, 2006 at 7:07 am
hey guys,
my laptop is a hp pavilion zv5000 …
so here is my problem:
the laptop was running and i got back after being away 15 oder 20 minutes …
i moved the mouse, the laptop switches out from the standby modus but suddenly the screen was getting black and i only could see a faint image …
so i rebooted and used the LCD lid switch by pressing it 2 or 3 times … the lcd was no longer dim …
but i have to use this button everytime i turn the laptop on … i’m only getting a faint image after a cold boot …
so, how i can fix this problem?
it’s not my laptop … warranty is over …
greetings
December 25th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Have IBM Thinkpad T23. I purchase a used inverterter per your suggestions, and the backlight worked for a while with a noticeable hum. After about 5 minutes the backlight went off. Is the hum sound indicative of a failing fl?
December 25th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Hey Steve,
Did you buy a used inverter board? May be you got a bad one?
December 26th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Hi CJ, This has been an informative thread — perhaps you could help me as well:
I have a Compaq Presario r3000z and it powers on, the fans start whirring, but the screen does not turn on –when I press the power button, powers on and fans whirr, and I see the lights saying that the wireless card and volume controls are on, and the DVD/CD drive opens, but I get THREE BEEPS: One long, then two short. Yesterday before this happened I noticed an occasional garbling of images, but it would fix itself within 3 to 5 seconds and be fine. The screen would go black every few hours, but then once again fix itself within a second or two.
I tried with only the AC adapter, and with only the battery, that is not the problem. I removed the 2nd RAM (I have 512 under the keyboard, where I haven’t touched it yet and 1GB in the 2nd slot that I am comfortable messing with) and it has the same problem. Any suggestions? Thank you, and merry christmas!
December 26th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Hey guys,
Have a Dell Inpiron 2200 whereby the screnn flickers and the ac-dc charging seems to be going back and forth(while watching power meter) when plugged into AC. If I go straight to just battery no problem, only when connected to AC. Tried cleaning the contacts with no change.
Any thoughts on this one ? Thanks.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:37 am
Hello
I got a laptop as a gift from my uncle which is Panasonic CF-L2
After someday I lost my motherboard software installations CD
Now I reinstall my windows XP but its install all future automatically but not install VGA drivers and Wireless LAN driver so it can’t working VGA and Wireless LAN
I also search from internet but not getting any support from internet. I wan to download software from internet.
Please provide me internet website so that I could download the required software and install in my laptop.
Otherwise provide me solutions how I will solve this problems.
My laptop model is : Let’s Note PRO PANASONIC CF-L2
Manufacturer : Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Japan
Thank you and regards
Shahidul Islam
December 27th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Help me… My laptop have some problems. When I turn it on, the screen is somewhat garbaged (with bars, boxes, lines scattered in it). I don’t know what to do. Can you e mail me so I’ll knowhow to fix such problem…. I think the LCD is just loose (not sure)…
December 29th, 2006 at 6:46 am
hi! good day.
i have a problem on my presario 2500 laptop.
no power going in to the inverter board.
December 29th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I have a video problem with a Gateway 600YG2. Upon running for 10 minutes or so, the screen display tends to go “snowy.” I am able to rectify the problem (usually temporarily) by applying pressure to the button panel over the area of video cable plugin/ wiring harness channel to monitor. Unplugging/replugging cable seems to have no effect. External monitor display fine. Would you care to venture an opinion on harness/ inverter possibilities? Local professional dignostics suggest inverter but my personal experience indicates cable short or grounding.
Thanks,
Chris
December 31st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Ryan K,
I think you might have a memory related problem. Remove the keyboard and replaced the 512MB RAM stick with 1GB you removed from the bottom. See if it makes any difference. If don’t know how to lift up the keyboard, download the laptop maintenance and service guide (3.97MB) and go to the page 138. It’s not necessary to disconnect the keyboard from the motherboard, just flip it over and put on the palmrest. Replace the memory module and test the laptop.
December 31st, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Rod,
I think that you might have a loose power jack and it needs to be resoldered. Try wiggling the adapter plug or moving the power cord when it’s connected to the laptop and see if the power LED goes on and off (the laptop switches between the main power and battery power). If it happens when you move the adapter plug, most likely you have a loose power jack.
Also you might have a bad power cord and there is a lose wire inside. Find a multimeter and test voltage on the power plug. If the power cuts off when you move the cord, it’s necessary to replace the AC adapter.
December 31st, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Riel Carlo O. Ingeniero,
Test the laptop with an external monitor attached, check the video output on the external monitor. If you have the same problem on the external monitor, test the memory module. It’s possible that you have a faulty RAM. If the problem appears only on the laptop LCD, but not on the external screen, you might have a bad LCD.
December 31st, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Chris Meymandi,
I don’t think the problem is related to the inverter board. The inverter board acts as a power supply for the LCD backlight bulb. If the inverter board works fine the backlight works fine, if the inverter board fail the backlight fails too, but I doubt that a faulty inverter board can cause a snowy display.
I think it’s either a bad video harness, faulty video connector on the motherboard or bad LCD screen. Can you reproduce/get rid of the problem when you touch or wiggle the video harness itself, without applying any pressure on the motherboard connector or the LCD screen? If yes, then I would try replacing it first.
January 2nd, 2007 at 11:51 am
I have reached similar conclusions, too. One thing bothers me, though. I am able to also correct the problem by applying pressure to the top surface of the case adjacent to the connector/harness area. After applying the pressure, the problem disappears for varying amounts of time, sometimes for the duration of the session. Could this indicate ground or other issues?
January 4th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I have many major problems with my A70!
Hello, first of all i would like to really thank you for a great site with so much info.
I have an a70, and it has had so many problems, first it had the Jack problem, where i had to wiggle to cord to get it working, i also re soldered the points, but that didn’t help much.
next problem was that it always shut down because of overheating. and again i also read on you website that i should clean the heat sink, and so did. but after putting it back together, the screen didn’t work, when i pressed the power button, the fans went on for 3 secs and then nothing. so again on your website, it said that the CPU wasn’t seated properly, and i then reopened it and properly seated the CPU chip.
i checked to see if that worked, so i connected the HDD, connected the LCD and connected the battery to already disassemble unit. (it was all laying on the table i didn’t put it back)
when i turned it on, everything was working fine, the computer was running, there was nothing wrong with the screen at this point.
I was so happy, so i started putting the unit back together. after completely reassembling the unit i turned it on. and it had the screen problem.
These pictures explain it better than i can:
http://img297.imageshack.us/im.....347sz7.jpg
http://img463.imageshack.us/im.....350gi9.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/im.....353qx3.jpg
http://img463.imageshack.us/im.....354sv8.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/im.....356dk7.jpg
http://img365.imageshack.us/im.....095cq8.jpg
http://img405.imageshack.us/im.....096as9.jpg
It looks much worse than these pics show.
I mean it was perfect when i connected it before, when the unit was disassembled. but after putting it back, i have no idea what happened.
o and the video output works fine. its perfect, please let me know what’s wrong with it. thank you
January 9th, 2007 at 9:07 am
IBM 390E with 3 thin horizontal lines at top part of screen spaced out about 1 inch, 1.5 and 2 inches apart. Plus display flickers, fades in and out sometimes. Works fine with external monitor. I’m guessing it is the LCD screen itself?
Thanks for having such a generous spirit sharing your knowledge and time.
Karen
January 12th, 2007 at 8:23 am
i have a ibm thinkpad t21. the laptop works fine apart from the screen. i get a very faint display. i can get a display by connecting to an external monitor.
i did take it apart to check to see if there was any loose cables but didnt see anything.
any ideas? dotn want to spend money on a replacement screen just yet.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:29 am
further to my previous post, the backlight (Fn Page Up) works but the Fn Home and Fn End doesnt make any difference to the brighness of the display. Home and End does work in Windows.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Jason,
Make sure the video cable is properly connected to the motherboard. Take a look inside the video cable connector on the motherboard and check if there are any bent pins.
January 14th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Karen,
If the external monitor works fine and lines appear only on the laptop LCD, then yes, most likely you have a bad screen.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I have a Dell Latitude D510. About 1/4 of the distance into the screen, there is a vertical dark box on the screen. You can still read the text on the screen, but it’s very noticeably darker for about 2 inches across, extending from top to bottom. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for diagnosing/fixing this.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:44 am
My laptop’s screen flashes when turned on, then goes mostly blank, with some horizontal lines on the bottom 1/4 of the screen.
I’ve connected an external monitor, and it displays just fine, so it doesn’t appear to be anything related to the graphics card or m/b.
I plan on checking cables and connections. Anything else I should consider?
Thanks, your site is great.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Thediddies2004,
If the laptop screen displays a very faint image but it works fine with an external monitor, then most likely you have a failed screen inverter. I would try replacing it first. IBM screen inverters are not expensive and you can find a new one for about $10-15 here. Make sure to buy a correct one, you can search by the FRU number (find it on the old inverter).
January 18th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Help!
My laptop powers up but I can’t see anything on the screen. It’s completely black. What do you think the problem might be, and do you think I can fix it?
January 18th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Jeff,
Will these lines go away or change pattern if you twist the screen a little bit? Move top left and right corners of the display into opposite directions and see if the pattern changes. If it does, probably you have a bad screen. Be careful, do not crack the screen.
Try reseating the video cable too. Not sure if it’s going to help, but just in case.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
When I first turn on my Dell Inspiron 1000, the screen will flash on for a second and go off. I have attached an external monitor and it works fine. When I change the display size, the laptop screen flashes on for a second and then off. It does the same when I press the small white screen switch. I purchased an inverter from eBay and changed the part but it still does the same thing. The eBay seller first sent the wrong part and then lied twice about when they re-shipped the right part so I don’t trust them. They claim the inverter was tested before shipment. It is a used inverter. Can the lamp or cable also cause this problem?
January 19th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Help Me!!
When I turn on my laptop, it turns off right away. This happen after I fix the damage dc jack. The laptop has power, but it won’t turn on. I have a Sony frv26 laptop. Anyone know how to fix it.
January 20th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I have a IBM ThinkPad 380D. On the right side of the screen there is a vertical grey bar. It looks almost like a task bar of some sorts. But I have installed and unistalled different OS with it still being there. I can connect it to a CRT moniter and the bar is not present. Is this a bad screen or is something messed up in the bios?
January 21st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
My Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro laptop screen is white with no data. Inverter is OK and backlit can be adjusted dim or bright. Works OK with external monitor. Replaced LCD data cable with new one from Siemens but problem still the same. I have double checked all screen connectors with a magnifying glass
Please help
January 24th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Albert Palmer,
You still can see a very faint image on the screen when the backlight goes off, right? Sounds like a bad inverter board.
I would try one more inverter first. If the screen still flashes for a second and then goes off even after the second inverter replacement, probably the CCFL tube (backlight bulb) is dead.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Abel Wilkes,
probably it’s just a bad LCD screen. I’ve never seen BIOS causing this problem.
January 27th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
i need some professional help
this is very weird to me
i have 2 dell inspirons 9300
both have same setup basically
nvidia 6800
17″ screen
one machine the laptop display is very very dim so i thought it was the inverter but please explain if this is possible
when i take the dim display and put it on the other laptop – it works fine
if i take the working laptop display and put it in place of the dim display – that works fine
i can’t really determine what the cause if for one display to be dim on one laptop but work fine on the other
anyone have any help i’d greatly appreciate it
i’ve swapped video cards with each and nothing changes – its just basically if i swap monitors, that fixes it but i can’t do that since one is not mine
help
matt
January 30th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I have a little problem,I have a selected background for my laptop,but it recently has been changing to the color black on its own.I keep changing it back the way i want it but a few minutes later while I’m using it, it just goes back to black.Is there something wrong? Everything works fine,by the way its a toshiba A105 S4284.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I want to know what is a FL inverter board. My laptop screen when faint. I got a a use one that work but for some reason it doesn’t show anything too. Can you help and explain what’s wrong? Thank you.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:11 am
[...] How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems [...]
February 6th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I have a dell inspiron 8500.
I cannot adjust my video settings above 840 X 600, if I do I cannot see a thing on the LCD screen but if I plug in an external monitor all is fine???
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
February 15th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I’m working on a Compaq M2000 right now, and it’s having some video problems.
The LCD is lit, and it flickers when it’s supposed to (ie: at boot, when Windows is about to load, etc), but it displays nothing. Having an external monitor connected, I’m able to see everything fine, so the video card is not the issue.
This happened all of a sudden, it wasn’t even the issue I was originally repairing in this laptop. I can’t figure out what to do to get the screen working again now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
February 17th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Can you help me locate the LCD lid close switch on my Toshiba A25 S207 notebook computer. It snot in the manual and I called Toshiba but they were no help.
February 19th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Matt,
maybe the video cable got loose? Try reconnecting the cable on both ends – the motherboard and LCD screen.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Hello:
My Compaq (1505USP) LAPTOP has a Video Problem.
The Display has flecks of Colors in it.
When I move the Back of the Display Forward it
Clears UP?
Do you know what I could do ?
February 19th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Steve Rosen,
I believe your Toshiba Satellite A25 notebook has a magnetic lid close switch, not just a regular button. It’s a small magnet located inside the display assembly. When you close the display, the magnet activates the switch.
February 20th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I am having a problem with a toshiba satellite 6100 pro. All of mmy regular functions and video work fine until I try to do any online gaming. When I try to load the game the video and graphics become garbaged and distorted. I have tried to reload and install the game all to no avail. Could there be a problem with the video connection? I have tried to run the same game from another computer and it all works fine…
February 21st, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I need to know where the Fl inverter is located cause for some reason i can’t find it. Can any one tell where it at? I have a Dell latitude cpx.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Carmen,
Did you open up the display assembly, did you look inside? You cannot find the inverter board under the display mask on the side from the LCD?
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 am
Ok, I have a problem with a Dell Inspiron screen, initially it was black, so I took the housing apart and found that the cable at the back of the lcd panel had become unseated. I rectified that, but now the bottom 3rd of the image is garbage; the rest is fine.
Any ideas?
February 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 am
Hi,
I’m having a problem with my toshiba satellite M30-344. The LCD shows no picture. An external Monitor works fine and when I press Fn+F5 I can see the backlight is switching on and off. I checked the cable between motherboard and LCD and I have connection at every cable. Is my LCD broken or what happens?
Thanks
Volker
February 25th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Daniel Anderson,
That’s strange that you experiencing this problem only with online gaming and regular video works just fine. Anyways, I know that Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 has an issue with the video card. Overtime the video card tends to pop up from it’s connector on the motherboard and you get all kind of problems with the video. You can try this. Here’s a disassembly guide for Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100. Lift up the keyboard as it shown on the steps 5-8. It’s not necessary to remove the keyboard, just flip it over and put on the palm rest. Under the keyboard you’ll see the video card, it’s shown on the step 11. Very gently press on the lower left corner of the card to seat it back into the slot on the motherboard. It might help.
BTW, didn’t you purchase your laptop in the United States? I think a while ago Toshiba issued a warranty extension for Satellite Pro 6100 notebooks because of a design defect that causes video and power related failures (motherboard, power board, video card issue). Try calling Toshiba or any authorized repair center and ask them about this warranty extension, you can get a free repair.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Volker,
It’s hard to guess without testing the laptop with a known good LCD cable. It could be either a bad LCD screen or bad video cable. Sorry, cannot narrow it down over the Internet.
February 25th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I recently tried to run a game on my laptop that is only 2 years old. The graphics were HORRIBLE so I bought more ram. That of course was not the problem. I believe it is the video card. Can I replace the video card or would it be easier to sell this computer and buy a new one? Help me!
February 25th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I just replaced the inverter board on my daughter’s HP DV1000 laptop and the screen lights up just fine as long as she’s using the battery, but as soon as it’s plugged in, the screen goes dim. Did I not connect something right? Before I replaced the board the screen was dim even using the battery. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
March 1st, 2007 at 8:25 am
Luis Iglesias: I have the exact same computer with the exact problem with the display, have you figured out why?
March 1st, 2007 at 11:28 am
I have an ACER Travelmate 2410 model. Within warranty period, the LCD screen became white, and so it was replaced. The replacement LCD screen (I think now that the replacement is a refurbished one and not new) started to work fine, but after 15-20 days after I noticed that in grey/light coloured areas in the screen, some greenish pixels are visible. Before this, I once reduced the brightness of the monitor.
Now I have to adjust the brightness level (-20 ) and then only the phenomena is reduced. Sometimes alphabets got garbled. Please suggest any solution
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook C2210 that has screen problems. I think the screen switch is broken. When I turn it on, sometimes it will work for about 30 seconds, then the screen will start to flicker badly. Other times, it just flickers on-and-off from the boot screen. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:06 am
taye,
It depends on the model of your laptop but in most cases you cannot replaced the video card. If you want to play games, buy a good desktop, it will be much cheaper then a gaming laptop.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
This is for Colleen who is trying to use an Epson S1 with her laptop set to 1280X768. That’s not a supported resolution. Change your laptop’s resolution to 1024X760, or, if you must have wide screen use 1152X870 or 1280X720 or 1920X1080.
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I have the same problem as post 164 but tested further. Compaq presario 1500 14″ (his was 15″) LCD goes dark when bumped (he had changed the wiring and inverter) so I skipped that step but attached a second monitor which ruled out system board. So what makes A lcd go dark after working for a while if it is not the harness, inverter, or system board? Or this is the stage where a new LCD is the only solution?
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:24 pm
TJ Baker,
How it flickers? Does the image disappear from the screen or it’s only the backlight turning on and off?
Did you test the laptop with an external monitor?
March 4th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Hello all,
I have an IBM Thinkpad A30. The problem I have is that when I start up the computer I see the startup screen it then goes black. The image is there but it is very dark and I can not see it. I replaced the inverter but I still have the same problem. Also I was using it on a monitor but it stopped showing the video and all I get with the monitor hooked up is check cable connection. The monitor works on a desktop computer but not the laptop. Anyone got a suggestion as to what the problem might be. Please help..
Thanks
March 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
David Askari,
Could you provide more details regarding your failure? When the LCD goes dark can you see any faint image on it? The external monitors works fine?
March 4th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
R. Frye,
It’s hard to guess what is wrong. In cases like this I usually connect a test back light lamp and see if it lights up when I turn on the laptop. Most likely you have no test lamp so you’ll have to guess or take the laptop to a repair shop for a professional diagnostic.
It could be:
1. defective video harness
2. bad backlight lamp (located inside the screen)
3. motherboard problem
4. the second inverter is bad too (not likely but possible)
Just in case try reseating the video cable on the motherboard. Make sure it’s making a good connection with the motherboard.
March 4th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Replying to post 377 cj2600 Says:
March 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
David Askari,
Could you provide more details regarding your failure? When the LCD goes dark can you see any faint image on it? The external monitors works fine?
Yes, I can see a faint image like one can see when the backlight is off. The external monitors continues to work after I bump the screen and it goes dark. A restart always fixes it for a while.
This same exact issue was posted by luis for the same computer.
I have the skill level of changing backlights in factory sealed lcds from a wallstreet and pismo mac laptops.
and I have changed inverters.
The question is if mother board, inverter, backlight, and wiring harness are ruled out, then there are no repairable parts left?
March 4th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
david askari,
I think you listed everything and there are no repairable parts left.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:37 am
It is the oddest thing I ever encountered. Since there are no repairable parts left, only a specialized repair person can test the LCD,s chips and resistors and etc. So it is better to replace it.
What I do not understand is how does a physical bump affect the chips, resistors, and stuff on the LCD board itself. All that fine tiny stuff just does not seem to be affected by bumps. The closest I have seen where physical manipulation can affect the electronics is bashing a tv on the side to a video back because of bad cold solder joints.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I have a p35-S605 Toshiba laptop, there was mt dew spilled on the keyboard. The keyboard was cleaned three times and still keys were sticking so I bought an USB external keyboard and it worked for awhile and quit. Everything except the internal keyboard was working fine, hardware etc. Until today it opened up to the setup/boot screen and it took 2 restarts from the power button and 30 minutes on the 3rd to get to the log on screen and to the desktop
In the meantime I found www. irisvista.com and it showed how to take apart the laptop. I followed each step and now the LCD screen wont work and when you hit the power button the hard drive runs then abruptly quit.
Also now the CD drive wont open and the network slide on the side will not move and there is no red light indicating that the network is running.
Hope you have some ideas….I would appreciate an answer
Thanks
Donna
March 6th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I’m having some major problems with a Packard Bell EasyNote Laptop. The unit will turn itself off completely without my prior command.
At first I suspected overheating, via a fan failure, but then I discovered if the screen is tilted back or forward at a certain point the unit powers off. It’s somehow the action of the screen lid moving that’s doing this.
It’s totally baffled me.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I have a averatec laptop 3500 series. Not only does the mouse run slow at times but it also on occassion would have light green horizital lines across the screen and flicking green specks. What are these issues and how can I fix them? I have run virus scans, defragmennted, ran spyware and there is nothing there. I dont have a whole lot of files on the laptop either. Someone HEELLLPPPP! GRRRRRRR. Its getting frustrating trying to figure out whats wrong and how to fix it.
March 9th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
i have a problem with my dell inspiron 9300. it has a 17″ lcd screen. sometimes i get the bottom third of the screen distorted but if i move the screen around on the hinges it goes away..sometime if i hit the top it also disappears..is the screen bad or something simple…thanks in advance
March 10th, 2007 at 9:31 am
APS,
Maybe the video cable is loose? In cases like this I try reseating the video cable first.
March 10th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Garry,
Check if the video cable makes a good connection with the LCD screen and motherboard, reconnect the cable on both ends. If reconnecting the cable will not help, probably you have a problem with the screen (most likely) or video cable.
March 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
If one can see stuff on a totally dark screen, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with the LCD unit itself? The back light is an independent system?
March 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
David Askari,
The backlight lamp is located inside the LCD screen. If the backlight is off and the screen is dark but you still can see a faint image, most likely there is a problem with the inverter board. It also could be a problem with the backlight lamp and in order to replace it you’ll have to disassemble the LCD screen.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I have a dell inspiron 6000 notebook and the bottom 2-3 inches of the screen gets fuzzy and when i squeeze the bottom of the monitor just below the screen above the shutoff switch, the picture clears and is fine …the rest of the screen works fine.
what do you think is causing the problem…if you want a picture of the problem let me know…
thanks
March 11th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Have been reading ,I see some of the symptoms of whats going on with my dell but not all my screen flickers but on the bottom portion (about 1/3rd way up) when I move the top,Is this just the early signs,of worse to come about? I know nothing about it but it seems to me that a loose cable would affect the entire screen.or is my assumption wrong?I will try the external monitor troubleshooting in the meantime.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
cj2600: I understand that as long as there is a faint black image and external monitor works, it is worth fixing the lcd. For it could be having the bulb, and/or inverter and/or cable replaced or fixed. Thanks
If the faint image is gone while external moniter works, the LCD chip is shot, and repair would be replacement.
Thankyou,
If I was redundant, it is because I cannot believe what I hear the first time.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
my laptop tecra 8100 not display when connec Power AC but when I connec in battery.. my laptop ON…
plese.. help
March 13th, 2007 at 12:16 am
HELLO ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I have SONY laptop .the problem is when i turn on the system the screen turns on to pure white but i can hear the sound of windows XP which play after boot up and but there is no display
but pure white color.
CAN U PLS MAIL ME ABOUT THIS PROBLEM
THANKS
– LIVIN
March 15th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I have a dell inspiron 1000. After it got left outside in the very cold weather over night, the backlight would not come on. I can see the image on the screen, but the back light does not come on. I ordered a inverterboard from ebay, and installed it, still no back light. Should I attempt to change the ccfl? Is there a way to test the screen switch, I don’t see one externally?
March 16th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hello, Got a aproblem with a Satellite A75-S211. The laptop will not turn on unless you hit the lid switch abou 5 times. Could this be a case of a stuck switch or a board problem. Thnaks
March 17th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Toshiba Satellite with a black screen. I do have a very faint image and the flash light beam helps to see the screen. I replaced the inverter and have played with wires and the lid switch. Still no image. What’s next? Replace the back light? What should that part cost?
March 19th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Have you found out about this problem? Mine is similar and looks like the screen is melting with horizontal green lines. Just wondering if you resolved yours.
Thanks
March 19th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
IBM T42.
I believe I have a loose connection. The screen starts up fine, but as I begin use the laptop (move the monitor or type), the screen goes blank, but the laptop is still on… there is no faint image on the screen. I have started the computer and just let it sit there without touching it, and the monitor will stay on indefinitely. If anyone has had this problem and it is not a loose connection, please let me know the solution. Otherwise, let’s assume that there is a loose connection somewhere–where should I look and what connections could I tighten.
Thank you. Great site.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Grady Dale,
The entire laptop will not turn on until you hit the switch? If yes, then it’s possible you have a stuck (or defective) lid close switch.
If you purchased your laptop in the United States, check out this thread, you might get a free repair from Toshiba.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Mark,
Test the laptop with an external monitor
the external screen goes blank too?
If this laptop has a discrete video card, make sure it’s making a good connection with the motherboard.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
See comment 397. I removed the inverter and no change. Dim image with or without the inverter. When I plug the inverter back in I get a red image, but only for a flash. I don’t seem to have a pin type lid switch. I can close the lid and the computer stays on. I have moved and played with wires..no help.
External monitor works fine.
What do you think? A new tube?
March 19th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Charles Mies,
External monitor works fine, so most likely there is nothing wrong with the system board/video card.
I’ve never seen a red flash before, probably it’s a failed backlight bulb. In some cases a bad backlight bulb can cause a reddish hue on the scree, so I assume it might cause a red flash too.
BTW, did you purchase your laptop in the United States. If yes, check out this post, it might help.
March 20th, 2007 at 4:07 am
Hi, I have a garbelled screen problem on my Vaio VGN-A215M laptop it seems to occur when the laptop is moved, i connected a external monotor and the same problem occured.
I think it could be the graphics driver but sa far as i know i have reloaded it. Which leaves i’m not sure…..
Pleeeease help if you can! Thankyou Eric
March 20th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
i have a laptop toshiba 1800, screen is solid , i change the video cables , i changed the fl inverter and i also changed the screen , but the screen is still white , wht should i do, again the everything else works fine ?
thanks
March 20th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Eric,
If the same garbled video appears on both screens when you move the laptop, probably there is something wrong with the video card, not the driver.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
nomi,
You changed cable, inverter and LCD, looks like the only part left is the motherboard.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
See comments 399, 401.
External monitor goes blank with the laptop lcd(Reply to 401).
Have taken the laptop apart, looked for loose connections, tried to reseat wires/connections, but no obvious signs of a problem. Closed up laptop and started it up. Ran well for more than an hour (I used it as I normally would).
Then I carried it to another location. Soon after screen blanked out again. It is now back on the operating table.
I started it up without closing it up (I don’t know if that is not recommended, but I made sure I was grounded). Anyway, I think I have narrowed it down–screen seems to die with the movement of the keyboard.
Could there be a short in the keyboard causing the lcd screen to die (but not the computer)? Does the keyboard need to be firmly set on the motherboard? Could the keyboard be drawing too much power? I’m not too familiar with the workings of a laptop, so is any of this possible or just a coincidence? Should I still be looking for something else (i.e video card wise)?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your timely previous response.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:35 am
Please help -got a new dell Inspiron 6000 with radeon x300 video driver -LCD show only in safe mode or if u disable video driver. Have reinstalled the driver but no change – notebook will show on external monitorwith driver installed but LCD remains black. Not sure what to do next.
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Mark,
I don’t know, never seen it before. Try disconnecting the keyboard and start the laptop without it. If the screen still blanks out, the keyboard is not your problem.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Sam,
Not sure if it’s going to help but try reducing screen resolution on the external monitor and then restart the laptop. If it will not help, I would probably reinstall the operating system just to make sure it’s not a software related problem.
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:47 am
Have doen that – reinstalled XP Professional and then XP home – still the same
March 27th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
This is one of the most helpful sites I’ve found on the internet!
I have a Toshiba Satellite A25-S207. After pressing the ‘ON’ button, to turn it on, the video output on the display, immediately begins blinking (flashing) at a fast rate and horizontal lines appear on the screen. The computer boots completely to the desktop and works normally, but, the video continues to flash on the laptop display. Occasionally the display will stop flashing and return to normal, but, returns to flashing after a few seconds.
When I connect an external monitor to the laptop, the video does not flash and appears completely normal.
Could a bad inverter possibly be causing the flashing?
OR since everything appears normal when using an external monitor, does this problem point more closely to a bad display?
March 29th, 2007 at 2:56 am
I’ve just fixed a Toshiba laptop with a garbled display. I removed the ram and gentle cleaned the edge connector with a dry towel, on reinsertion it all worked fine.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:13 am
HI i have a big problem with a packard bell EASYNOTE_GN45-010
notebook starts up displays post screen, boots to windows xp
Xp boots up screen appears with progress bar running.Then everything dissappears.After this point i can hear the xp logon sound but there is nothing on the display.
Here is what i tried.
Safe mode
last known good config
enable vga mode
used external crt monitor, the same results here.
checked in the bios for a setting, found nothing
searched google, nothing
tried the fn button together with the f3 button
any help will be greatly apreciated.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Hello. I am having problems with my LCD screen on a Inspiron 9100 laptop. Called Dell and they had me put it through a series of tests and concluded that I need a new LCD screen. Would like a second opinion. The LCD screen has faint white lines running across half of the screen which is causing the images on the screen to look faded on the right hand side. Can send you a picture to show exactly what it looks like. Thanks for any help you can provide.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Mike McLain,
It doesn’t sound like an inverter problem. With a bad inverter the backlight might flash on and off but it shouldn’t cause any horizontal lines on the screen.
How it’s flashing? The backlight is flashing but the image stays on the screen or both the backlight and image disappear?
I would check the video cable first. Try reseating it on both ends, it might be just a loose cable.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Adolf Meyer,
It could be a software related problem. Try reinstalling Windows.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Hats off to this resource, before anything else. Now, for the rest. I have a Acer travelmate c100 with a screen which is misbehaving. This is what actually happens – when the unit is powered on, horizontal bluish lines appear, which steadies to a pattern which has a hint of the shape of the windows login screen. On loggin in, I can hear normal disk activity and again, lines appear which vaguely resemble the graphic patterns to be expected, like predominanly blue lines interspersed with the white of the start menu when the windows start key is pressed.
I checked the output on an exernal monitor and its fine. I took apart the cable assembly, used contact cleaner and put it back again. Took apart the lcd housing, and put it back again, but to no avail.
I suspect it is either the screen or the digitizer that has gone, not the inverter or the backlight (the reason I think this is because the brightness of the horizontal and vertical lines that appear on the screen can be controlled by the screen brightness feature.)
Finally, finally, my question. How do you diagonize whether it is the lcd screen or the digitizer that has gone? Or is it the cable? Also, any place where I could get cheap or used screens? My apologies for making this a mile long, and thanks again. I already posted this on the ‘bad video on lcd..’ forum – hope I’m not being redundant.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Jacquelyn Smith,
Sounds like a bad screen.
It’s not a faulty inverter because you still can see the backlight.
It’s not a faulty/loose video cable or bad video card because only a part of the screen is affected, not the entire screen.
I would say it’s a bad screen.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:41 am
cj,
Now that I know the inverter controls the backlight, much like a ballast controls a flourescent light, I will try to explain the flashes.
The images never disappear and the backlight
appears to remain on. More precisely, it’s as if the same image is being re-drawn at a fast rate, which it is, but, there appears to be a small offset between the original and the re-drawn image (hence; flashing). On occasion the image will stablize, but, within 30 seconds begins (flashing) again. I will try re-seating the video cable as per your suggestion.
When using an external monitor, there are no symptoms…I could provide a short video clip, if interested.
Thanks again.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:40 pm
My laptop’s lcd screen is always black when I turn it on and it stays that way…I can still type in my password and hear it logging in to my user account, but the screen is just black. Please e-mail me some help!!
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
I have a compaq notebook that when everytime I lift the screen to a certain degree the screen goes really dim where you can hardly see anything. I tried using a new inverter but still had the same problem. would it be the lcd cable? if so, any idea where I could buy one and how much they cost?
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Kaushik,
Response to comment #419.
I don’t think this problem is related to the digitizer. The digitizer is located behind the screen and helps to locate the position of the tablet PC pen (stylus). When you have a problem with the digitizer, it shouldn’t affect video on the screen.
I think you have either a bad video cable or a problem with the screen. Unfortunately there is no way to find out witch one is causing the problem until you test your tablet PC with a known good screen (or cable).
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Mike Mc,
Not sure what’s going on with your laptop. If the backlight stays on, probably the problem is not related to the inverter. The external video works fine, so likely there is nothing wrong with the video card.
There could be something wrong with the LCD screen but it’s just a guess.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Bad inverters have numerous ways to show it. My backlight goes off after a little while and comes back after restart and goes out again. Is one of the possible causes of this behavior a Bad inverter or cable?
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Madde,
Make sure if the video cable is not loose, check connections on both ends: on the motherboard and LCD.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
David Askari,
This is a typical behavior of a faulty inverter board.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
I unplugged the cable from each end, plugged them back in and still nothing. does this mean I need a new one? I don’t know what else it could be.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Thankyou
April 4th, 2007 at 4:38 am
I have one of those ?Toshiba laptops and there’s about twelve irregularly spaced white vertical lines on the screen, with a couple lighter colored blue or red one too. They’ve been there for a while and when I shut down they go off but they’re on the startup screen so is it something with the videocard or hard drive? I really don’t know anything about computers so could somene please help?
April 7th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Madde,
In the comment 423 you mentioned that the screen goes really dim when you lift it to a certain degree.
So you reseated the video cable and it didn’t help, right? At the next step I would try replacing the cable. It might not help, but at lease it’s not as expensive as a new LCD screen or motherboard.
Check the lid close switch button, make sure it moves freely. It’s possible that when you move the display, it somehow pushes the lid close switch and the backlight goes off. It’s just a guess.
April 7th, 2007 at 11:02 am
James H,
Take a look on the example 2 in this post. Does it look like your screen? If it does, then most likely you have a faulty LCD.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I am trying to diagnose a video LCD problem I have with a HP ZT1155 laptop.. Video is perfect if I hook to an external monitor. If I use the laptop LCD. The top third of the screen is fine, has color, but is very bright and color is faint. The botton two thirds is garbled and objects seem to be jumping around on the screen. Sometimes i get darker colored vertical lines in this section of the screen. I lose the mouse ponter in this section also. I have checked the video cable on the board and the back of the lcd. They seem to be seated ok. Any ideas ????
Thanks a lot for the help.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Hi,
Thanks for having this wonderful site.
My Dell inspiron 9100 has hori and vertical lines all over the lcd and the picture is totally blur, connected to the external monitor and got the same unclear display. Is it a video card issue. Please help.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Bryan,
It sounds like a problem with the LCD screen. Unfortunately, you have to hook up a test LCD to confirm the diagnose. I don’t think this is a problem with the video cable.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
G. Yogaraj,
If you get the same unclear display on both internal and external screens, then most likely something is wrong with the graphics card. If the graphics card is a discrete module, try reseating it, make sure the card is making a good contact with the motherboard. If the graphics card is integrated into the motherboard, you’ll have to replace it.
Just in case. If the video card uses shared memory (part of the main memory), run the memory test. For testing memory you can use Memtest86+. If memory fails the test, replace it.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Thanks cj. Just to clarify, By saying graphics card, you meant the Video Card correct ?
I am finding used video cards for less than 100 dollars and I will try that out first as i could not run the memtest becoz’ I cannot see the screen display
April 11th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I have the exact same problem as 415 and 418. Windows xp starts with bar running across, and screen goes completely blank. Some advice was given to reinstall XP, but how can I if I can’t get a screen to appear in the first place? Also, would I lose everything in Windows Media player if I did that?
April 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Im haveing a problem with my toshiba satellite laptop. When i play a online game called city of heroes, the graphics get slightly distorted and garbled during gameplay.
It’s really weird, some graphics seem to be affected more seriously then others. For example, the characters don’t really distort too much, just the facial features. The in game txt seems to be affected the worst.
And it gets worse over time. The graphics are perfect when I start playing, but after about 10 min of play time it starts and after a few hours it’s horrible.
I downloaded all recent drivers and still nothing. Any help with this problem?
April 13th, 2007 at 6:36 am
IBM ThinkPad R31 boots up, but backlight sometimes does not come on for several minutes–sometimes not at all without further off/on tries. Same when returning from standby. Once on, light stays on. Does this sound like a bad inverter board connection or failing inverter or is this likely some other problem?
April 14th, 2007 at 3:37 am
We have a Compaq M2000 which when turned on has horizontal lines running and it does it usual boot up sequence and then to the desktop except the lines still run. I have tested it on another monitor and it boots up properly would be this be an inverter LCD problem. Thanks for the great site.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I have a IBM ThinkPad T40 which i use to play online games and recently when i was playing a game i picked up the laptop to move it and the screen went black, i moved it again then i got fuzzy colored vertical lines going down the screen the only way i was able to get around it was by shutting down the computer by holding the power button. This happens with all of my games and now if i move the laptop to much while doing anything it will go black then it will come back up with pixels that wont work, when this happens i just have to logout of the computer then log back in PLEASE HELP ME!
April 16th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Jim,
Most likely it’s either a bad connection between the cables and the inverter board or you have a faulty inverter.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hope you can help. I have a Fujitsu n6010. There is white flashing on the bottom third of the screen only. Rest of the screen look fine. If I put pressure on the edge of the screen the flashing will frequently go away but will come back. Also moving the screen forward or backward seems to cause the problem to occur. Thanks
April 18th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
my laptop screen displays like negative film if i tap on my screen its come out normal n gon again but i didnot manage to find the luse cantact ? help me plese
April 21st, 2007 at 5:26 am
I have a Toshiba L25-S1192. The LCD lid close switch is broken. Where can I find a replacement one?
Thanks,
Jamie
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Robert,
Check the video cable connection on the motherboard, make sure it’s correctly connected, reseat the cable. In some cases reconnecting the video cable on the motherboard makes this problem go away.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Jerry,
I think this is a problem with the screen and you’ll have to replace it.
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
sri,
If you reseated the video cable on both ends and it didn’t help, most likely you have a bad LCD screen. I don’t think that a faulty video cable can “invert” colors on the screen.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I have a HP zv6000 laptop. the display will distort and have lines in it. I can tap on the screen or flex the frame and the picture will straighten up and stay this way until restart or tapping the screen or flexing the frame is the LCD bad and need replaced or can something else be at fault. thanks for any help
April 26th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Hi there,
I have a HP nx9005. At certain times the screen starts to fade to white\red from the outside inwards. This is usually followed by a series of horizontal lines running from top to bottom.
It seems to be triggered by certain screens(maybe higher definition images) but this is not always the case.
If I adjust the screen(pull forward and backwards) the problem gos away but only briefly. This machine is about to go out the window!
Just wondering if you feel this is an LCD issue or something else?
Thanks a million,
Eoghan
April 29th, 2007 at 3:30 am
where are the answers of these questions? How i can find them?
April 29th, 2007 at 3:35 am
I have problem with my FSiemens notebook, it`s shows white screen when I`m working and I need to turn of and then on if I want to work. I change the mainboard, the desktop and all screen connections, but nothing change and I still have some problem . Please help me!
April 29th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Vin,
First of all I would try reconnecting the video cable on both ends – motherboard and back of the LCD screen. It’s possible the video cable connection got loose and not making a good contact with the motherboard or LCD screen. Reseat the cable first.
If reconnecting the video cable will not help, probably you have either a faulty video cable or bad LCD screen. I would say it’s probably a bad screen.
You can try replacing the video cable, just in case. The cable is not expensive, I just found one here for USD13, just search for “zv6000 video cable”. Good luck.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Eoghan,
Take a look at my previous comment and try the same. Try reseating or replacing the video cable first.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
My acreen has a line from the top to the bottom which disapear when I press the top. What is the problem and solution?
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Andre,
Sounds like you have a faulty LCD screen. You cannot fix this problem yourself, you’ll have to replace the screen.
May 5th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Hi CJ,
Reseat of video cable has resolved the problem. Thanks a million.
EK
May 13th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I have laptop as in my sig. I had flex video cable between LCD and mobo with bad connection where it plugs into mobo. When you tug on that connector you might get it to work properly and I did a big mistake, I tried to use screwdriver to move it in place and that moment I felt smell of burning semiconductors. I might have touched mobo next to the connector and power was on. No video on LCD screen afterwards, only one white line on bottom (actually broken in 2 pieces) or u can get all screen grayish/whitish if u play with connector. Hoping that smell came from broken connector on flex video cable I ordered new one and installed it. Same white line on black background. I connected to external LCD monitor and everything works normally, I can even get internal LCD to display single color red, green etc screens with good brightness and uniformity during diagnostics when I tell that I don’t see horizontal color stripes (that I can see only when I toggle to external LCD). I can take it to local repair shop, send it somewhere (it’s out of warranty) or replace parts myself. I had replaced LCD, flex video cable, memory, processor, HD on this laptop before so I most likely will be able to replace mobo by myself. I also own 640m and can switch parts from it temporary for diagnostics. Thanks!
May 13th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Oh, my laptop is Dell Iinspiron 6400
May 13th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
And one more thing to 2 previous posts. The only error message I get when running Dell full system diagnostics utility is 5300:021C which I looked up and It says that it can be mobo, lcd, video cable or card. It also said “detected a problem with retraced status”
May 14th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I have a Dell 6000 Inspiron. Recently I keep losing the bottom half of the display. It appears to be a faulty “lid” – if I move it around the full image comes back on but then the bottom half gets stuck again. The laptop otherwise all works OK. Any suggestions what I can do to fix this? Total novice in laptops!
May 15th, 2007 at 2:25 am
I have a IBM T41 with a a red tint with it and now a backlight which comes on for a short while 30 secs, if i turn the brightness up it only stays on for 5 secs, the inverter was making a buzzing noise, so I replaced it. still got the same fault. Is this likely to be the LCD itself…. have you got instructions on how to replace one?..
Excellent site, very useful!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Tony,
I think you might have damaged the motherboard. If you have some experience, it shouldn’t be very difficult replacing the motherboard. Dell support website has some partial disassembly instructions for a Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Sarah,
If you have never repaired laptops before, probably you will not be able to fix the laptop yourself because it requires some disassembly work.
First of all, I would try reseting the video cable on both ends to make sure it’s making a good solid contact with the motherboard and the LCD screen. One end of the video cable connects to the motherboard and you can access it after removing the hinge cover. The second end connects to the back of the LCD screen and for reseating it you’ll have to take apart the display assembly. Fortunately you can download the maintenance manual for your model from Dell website. The manual has step-by-step disassembly instructions with pictures.
If the LCD screen still has the same problem even after you reconnected the video cable, most likely you have a faulty screen.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
AMG,
Probably you have a faulty backlight lamp inside the LCD screen. It’s possible to replace just the backlight lamp inside the screen but it’s difficult and you can easily damage the screen.
If you decide to replace the LCD screen then you can download the hardware maintenance manual for IBM ThinkPad T41 and find instructions with pictures in there.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Hi
I own ThinkpPad r40 and the lcd screen has extra horizontal or vertical lines displayed , PLS advise.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:30 am
coolex,
Test the laptop with an external monitor. If you see same horizontal and vertical lines on the external screen, most likely you have a problem with the video card. If the external monitor works fine, something is wrong inside the laptop LCD panel, could be just a loose cable or a faulty LCD screen.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I have a toshiba satellie a 105-s2716 and when I turn it on the windows loading screen comes up fine. Once windows loads up, the screen goes dark, no light or anything. I plugged in an external monitor and it works fine. I did a fresh install of the OS and while the system is installing the new OS everything is fine on the screen, the problem is once the OS begins booting up, it goes dark and the only way to see it is through an external screen. Any ideas?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Peter,
The screen is completely dark and has no backlight at all or it turns dark gray with a few horizontal lines?
May 25th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Yes the screen is completely blank with no lines at all.
May 27th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Hi, my brother’s laptop is a Toshiba Satellite M30, and he asked me to take a look at it, in short, the lcd screen and an external display will show garbled video, it looks as if the days of the first nintendo when the cartridge would pop out of the system and you would see those white vertical lines, except on a laptop. at first i thought it might be the connection but after disassembling it with the guide from this website,and assembling it all back i did not get much of a video difference.i carefully looked around the motherboard and no sign of burning was present,i was wondering if replacing smth could help solve the problem or if i will have to replace the mainboard?and if reseating the GPU might help this as well.now when loading windows in normal mode it would start the loading process and then give me a blue screen which i cannot read,but it does load the laptop in safe mode, i can see windows but it is very hard to navigate.any help will be appreciated, thx and GREAT WEBSITE
. warranty is out of the question since the laptop is over 2 years old!! thx again
May 28th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Peter,
That’s a weird problem.
Boot the laptop with an external screen and then try using Fn+F5 key combination to switch the video output from the external monitor/TV to the internal LCD, maybe the laptops stuck in the external mode somehow. Press and hold down the Fn key and at the same time press on the F5 key to select the correct screen.
Also try this. Enter the BIOS and set it to default. Reboot the laptop and see if it helps.
Try upgrading the BIOS.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Hi,
My IBM Thinkpad R32’s LCD looks dim/yellowish even if the brightness is on its full level. What should I look into? I have a photo on the URL below (the R32 beside a laptop with a clearer/lighter display).
http://www.geocities.com/yuho0/P5240784.JPG
Many thanks.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Paul K,
Does the screen display garbled video even before Windows starts loading?
I don’t think this is a software related problem but just in case you can try booting the laptop from any live Linux CD (I recommend Knoppix) and see if it makes any difference and the video works fine with Linux. If it does, try reinstalling Windows.
If both screens show garbled video, most likely you have a problem with the video card. Toshiba Satellite M30 has a video card integrated into the motherboard. When the video card goes bad you have to replace the entire motherboard, you cannot fix it at home.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Yuhoo,
Have you tried adjusting the screen brightness in the BIOS? I believe for IMB laptops you can adjust the brightness level in the BIOS setup menu.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Hi,
Yes, I’ve already set the brightness on the BIOS to high. I’ve attached an external LCD monitor and the display is clear and bright. Is my LCD already failing?
Many thanks.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Yuhoo,
Probably the LCD screen is getting old, apparently the backlight lamp is not as bright as before. On your picture the IBM screen doesn’t look too bad.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:16 pm
i dropped my laptop and now it has inverted colors unless I bang on it a few times….but as soon as i move, it goes back to inverted. what do i do!?!
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Dan,
I would try reconnecting the video cable on both ends – the motherboard and the LCD screen. It’s possible that one or both contacts got loose.
If reseating connections will not help, most likely you have damaged the LCD screen and have to replace it.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Help me fix this mess Please!!!!!!
Dell inspiron 1200.
Monitor goes blank, over heats, can’t play Cd’s (audio) Says no
soundcard or it’s damaged.The say’s found new hardware,
thie is driving me Nuts.
help
sun
June 9th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Hi I have an prolblem with my toshiba Satellite M35 Series One night I was listing to music when i woke up the next moring There was no music and the lcd screen was white i closed the lid and open it up and it would not come on I had a nehibor of mine come and look at it he reset the ram had the notebook come and hooked it up to an exteranl montior and the computer was working Put the lcd screen was not working however when he switched sources you could see the back light come on but now image he says the screen is dead but i would like an secound opinon. any help would be aprieated.
also could some one tell me what is the fastes processor that i could use in this notebook ?? it is now at 1.40 ghz i am hoping for anything between 1.70-2.20 ghz
June 10th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Marcellus hill,
The laptop works find with an external monitor, so most likely there is nothing wrong with the motherboard/video card.
It could be:
1. Loose connection between the video cable and the LCD screen. It’s necessary to open up the display assembly and reseat the cable on the back of the LCD. It might help.
2. It’s possible that you have a faulty LCD screen.
3. There is a possibility of a bad video cable (doubt it).
Cannot help you with upgrading the processor. Toshiba doesn’t provide any information on upgrading processors.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
THANKS !!!
June 19th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
While trying to delete something else, I deleted SavageIX and Utilities which changed my XGA display settings to VGA mode. I’m wanting to download whatever will restore it back to the XGA setting. The laptop is a Thinkpad T23 & running Windows 2000 service pack 4. You can either Email or leave comment on: cooltruth.spaces.live.com if know where I can download a fix for this problem.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite 2400. Display is fine with external monitor. LCD display flickers constantly. There are horizontal lines at start up. When running Windows it looks like the whole screen is vibrating vertically. It stops sometimes but quickly resumes.
I think the LCD is pooched but want to confirm diagnosis before ordering the part. HELP!
June 21st, 2007 at 6:05 am
hi, well i have a laptop which is Panasonic CF-L2 so i lost my charger and the battery is gone. So i am looking for it badly, by the way i am in india, bangalore. So plz if anyone know how to get these 2 things let me know!!! I’ll be very very happy if somebody tells it. Thank u!
June 21st, 2007 at 8:24 am
My back light is not working on my dell laptop.I can make it out with a flashlight.But for the life of me I cannot find the switch that tells the laptop that the screen is open.I can see the switch on my wifes hp laptop.can you help
June 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I have a jujitsu e7010 and on the right of the screen about a 1/4 way across I can not see anything I just get red blue green white and so on all the colours tried all I can think of is the screen on its way out or can it be fixed hope someone can help
June 25th, 2007 at 12:23 am
I have a fujitsu e7010 and on the right of the screen about a 1/4 way across I can not see anything I just get red blue green white black and so on all the colours in vertical lines tried all I can think of is the screen on its way out or can it be fixed hope someone can help sorry about the last post thanks
June 25th, 2007 at 7:14 am
My Toshiba Satellite M60 was working fine up until recently. The first time, I was playing a MMORPG (one that I’ve been playing on this notebook for over a year and a half), and the screen flickered for a second, and then went blank (there was still a backlight, but nothing on the screen at all). I alt+tabed out of the game, and the screen filled with my normal windows screen. So I went back into the game, and it worked for a few more minutes, then went blank again. The game was still running, as I could see my character in the game on my hubby’s comp, and could type in chat, and it came up on his computer. So I alt+tabbed out again, and this time, the computer crashed. I restarted it, but when I restarted it, it didn’t seem to want to do anything. After a bit of trial and error (and two complete system reboots), the problem still persists. It most of the time restarts, and can be used with an external monitor, and after the two reboots, it would work fine for a while (a few hours), then it would do it again. We are at wits end, as this laptop was not cheap, but it is out of its waranty, and we are not keen to pay out the ears for an expensive repair. Any help, or suggestions you could give would be fantastic.
p.s. The computer has been taken apart and put back together, with the fan being hoovered and everything jiggied to make sure it’s in properly. HELP Please!
June 30th, 2007 at 7:21 am
Thanks for the great information here – it’s been a good resource.
Question :
I have a Toshiba Tecra A1 with a screen problem. Half of the screen is composed of wide black vertical stripes (which sometimes will appear as shades of gray/green.)
Here is an image of the problem :
http://i8.photobucket.com/albu.....ure004.jpg
I’ve tried :
*reseating the connectors to the LCD / Mobo
*external monitor test (works fine)
But no luck. One suggestion has been that
“the contacts on the display edge have
separated, which means replacing the whole LCD unit”
What do you think?
Thanks in advance,
Janos
June 30th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Shavonne,
Have you completely ruled out a software problem?
Things I would try (if you haven’t already)
1. Check and make sure that the fan is working – restarting is sometimes known as a sympton of overheating. It’s outputting hot air, correct?
2. Reinstall video card drivers (they usually come with the laptop)
3. Use Windows Repair utility if that’s your OS
4. Use a temperature-monitoring utility to check the internal temperature (around the vid card, if possible)
5. Check out the BIOS on the notebook to make sure nothing is set incorrectly somehow…power management or something like that…
I’m not an expert, but hopefully that will help..
July 1st, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Janos Bartok,
Looks like a bad LCD screen to me. I doubt that a faulty video cable can cause this problem.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
After connecting my laptop to a projector screen in class, a green thin vertical line appeared on my laptop screen and doesn’t go away with turning on and off the machine. Is there anything I can do to remove the line and to recuperate the normal screen?
Thanks.
YP
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I have a Toshiba 2535cds and the screen is almost pure white (bright light). I can view the screen at the extream bent back position, but the whiteness is still there, just more viewable. The output to an external monitor works great with no signs of a video issue. I crank down the contrast and that helps a bit but it is still more or less useless. I have checked my cables and they are all seated.
Could it be a bad inverter board?
What else could it be?
Thank you,
Dalobo
Dalobo
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
YP,
Does this line appear on the screen even before Windows starts loading or you can see it only in Windows?
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:46 pm
dalobo,
I don’t think your problem is related to the inverter board because the screen still lights up. When you have a faulty inverter, the screen is almost black and you can barely see the image.
I think you might have a bad LCD screen. This is my guess.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:54 am
My screen is white (over bright) from the moment I turn it on, until I turn it off. The contrast wheel brings the image into a bit more viewable range. The colors are all right. The Toshibia comes up red, and the windows logo has the right colors and the blue screen of check diisk is a deep blue. To see this though, the LCD has to be bent back as far as it can be, and the contrast wheel must be turned all the way down. I have the BIOS set to smii-bright too, which seemed to help a bit.
Many years ago I had this laptop in for an issue similar to this (At least I thought so) and they said they replaced the inverter board and the contrast board. (Twice! I just do not remember the symptons…) That is why I suspeced one of those. The contrast wheel does make a change so I figured it was not that.
Couldnt the inverter make it to bright?
I have seen somewhere that an all white screen could be the cause of a fualty wiring harnes… what do you think?
I can provide pictures if need be.
Thanks for the help.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
dalobo,
I didn’t know that you have a separate contrast wheel.
For me it is hard to guess what is wrong because I have never fixed laptops with a contrast wheel (contrast board), modern Toshiba laptops do not have it.
I still doubt that your problem is related to the inverter board. The inverter board works as a power supply for the backlight lamp, it converts low voltage DC power into high voltage AC. From my experience, the inverter board either works or not, there is no intermediate state causing the screen to be too bright or half-bright. When the inverter board works fine, you can see the backlight, when it doesn’t work, there is no backlight.
I’ve fixed hundreds modern Toshiba laptops with backlight problems but I’ve never seen that a faulty inverter causes the screen to be over bright.
I’m not sure how the contrast board works but it could be your problem or your problem is somehow related to the LCD screen.
Sorry man, cannot give you more accurate guess.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
All the images on my Toshiba Satellite 2595DS appears to be trailed by ‘Double Images’ or GHOSTS What would cause this type of image problem ?
July 13th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
P J JONES,
Do you see this ghosting only when Windows is loaded or it appear right from the startup screen? Did you test your laptop with an external monitor? Do you see ghosting effect on the external video?
July 13th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I switch on my laptop and it shows a light both hard driv LED and battery LED shows but about five seconds the lights went off again, so i try ccharging the battry and when I pluged it in the power to try charge it, the ccharger LED will show and in some minutes the charger LED will go off, and will not charge, pls guys I need some advice on whate the problem is and on how to fix it? thank you.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Hi cj2600,
The Ghosting starts right after windows xp loadsl I will test it on an external monitor tomorrow. But in the meantime, so you have iny ideas of the cause?
July 14th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Hi cj2600,
I tried hooking up an externa; monitor but without muck success. I plugged the monitor in back of the laptop but the monitor did not come on just the laptop screen remains on . What am I doing wrong?
July 14th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Hi cj2600,
Do you think that because my system has a Celeron 399 processor ans 192mb ram while running windows xp pro might have something to do with the ‘Ghosting’ effect show
ing up inthe video system?
Thaks!
July 14th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Temple,
Maybe your battery will not charge because the power jack is loose? Check the post I linked to.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
P J JONES,
To switch the video signal from the internal screen to the external monitor, you can use the following key combination. Press and hold down the Fn key and at the same time press on the F5 key until the video switches to the external monitor.
Before you come to any conclusion, test the laptop with the external screen. If the external video is not ghosting, most likely it’s not a software related problem.
I don’t think so. Here are XP requirements. 300MHz or higher processor, 128MB or higher RAM, so you are good here. Yes, your laptop will run very slow with XP but you shouldn’t see any ghosting effect because of your CPU and memory.
Did you run XP before on this laptop or you just installed it? Check the video driver, make sure it’s a correct one.
July 15th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Hi cj2600,
I hooded my laptop up to my external monittor and the video worked just fine! Windows XP PRO was installed along with the DVD drive on top of I believe Windows 98. I know the driver info but I am having great difficulty in locating the driver from Trident.
Thanks
July 20th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I replaced the inverterboard on my laptop, but now am having trouble connecting to the internet.
Any connection?
July 21st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Marianne,
It depends.
1. If you cannot connect to the Internet using the network cable, most likely there is no connection.
2. If you cannot connect to the Internet using the wireless card, there could be a connection. The wireless antennas are located inside the display assembly. It is possible that you damaged the wireless antennas while replacing the inverter board. This is just a guess.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Heres goes nothing, My laptop just today has acquired a LCD problem. It all started with a purple vertical line on the left side of my screen and that would blink for 2 seconds and show up every 10 – 20 seconds or so. I ignored it, and then alot of little horizontal blue lines appeared on my screen. And they resize and move with my screen when I changed resolution size. I was working with 1920 x 1200 resolution, and now I cant get to it because I had to unistall my graphics card driver. Seems that My screen goes all black when its installed. So I either run my laptop in safe mode, or with a VGA regular driver in normal mode. Heres a ss.
http://img247.imageshack.us/im.....amplq1.jpg
I also cant get my laptop to hook up to my tv via S-video, or an old CRT I got via adapter. If I could I could test the other screens to see if it had horizontal lines or not. Anyways… If anyone has any idea how to help me Plz tell me
I’ll be around. If I cant fix the problem I’m just gonna go up to a compaq store and have them take a look at it.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:00 am
hi. A while ago my dc jack on my Sony Vaio PCG-V505 was acting up, so I had it replaced. Ever since then the video on my machine has been garbaged. So, I took it back to the repair place 4 times, and each time they found nothing. Finally, they said it was the LCD. Then, since I was skeptical, I connected the computer to a monitor at my house using a docking station, and the picture was still messed up. You say up there that the problem is probably the video card. Do you think they messed something up when they replaced the dc jack?
July 30th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Hi, I have an ASUS A3000 laptop. Just recently, one dotted blue or green vertical line has been moving up and down the screen. This line shows up even before Windows comes on, as soon as there’s light. Someone says it could be the video card. Is this the same as a graphics card? Or is it the LCD screen. Would really appreciate your help. Thank you.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Hi again, I started reading other comments and questions posted, and I plugged to an external monitor and there wasn’t any problem with a vertical line. So then I tried unplugging and plugging the video cable again. Then I reinstalled the video VGA? driver. Still have the line on the screen. Do you think I should try replacing the video cable next? Or is it the LCD?
July 31st, 2007 at 7:49 pm
My girlfriend has a Toshiba P30 with a problem similar to one a few comments back. After playing a game in full screen, when the screen resolution changed back, a thin yellowish vertical line appeared about a third of the way along her monitor. When she turns the computer on, and the Toshiba splash screen is on, the line is not there, but once the Windows XP loading screen comes up, it is there and stays there the whole time the computer is on. Is there any hope for the LCD?
July 31st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Anthony,
Test the laptop in safe mode. Do you see the vertical line in safe mode?
Check out video on the external screen? Does it appear on the external screen?
If this is a thin (1-2 pixel wide) line, then most likely this is related to the LCD screen. I guess you cannot see this line on the starup screen because the line is not visible on a black background.
Try this. Load Windows and change the desktop background to black color. Do you still see the line?
July 31st, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Pierre,
If the vertical line appears only on the laptop LCD but not on the external screen then most likely you have a problem with the LCD screen.
I doubt that this problem is related to the video cable. A bad video cable can affect the entire image on the screen but I don’t think it cannot cause a thin vertical line.
Check out example 2 in this post. You line looks something like that? If yes then most likely it’s a bad LCD screen.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:00 am
Hi.
I have an Acer Aspire 5630 with a bad FL inverter. The wierd thing is that often it also makes 3 beeps (1 long and 2 short ) when starts and then it hangs. Could the bad inverter cause this beeps or is there something else?
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Bogdan,
No, it couldn’t.
Check the memory first, make sure it’s seated properly. Reconnect the memory module and check if the contacts on the memory are clean. Test your laptop with a known good memory.
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:32 am
Thanks CJ.
I reseated the memory modules and now the beeps are gone but there is no display on the LCD (not even the faint image that was before when only the inverter was bad) nor on the external monitor.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Hello ! I`m the girl with that Fujitsu Siemens which were making white screen. I understand from where were the problem – my RAM memory wasn`t same frequency like it should be for this model. Because I increase it and instead of to put DDR 330, I put DDR 400.
So if someone have same problem and just before that he change his RAM memory , please check is it same frequency
August 14th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Hello, I have a Gateway M680. My screen display vertical line usually during the startup and a couple of minutes after. Sometime when it is cool I also experince some random crashes (?). On the S-Video everything is fine so I guess this is the motherboard or the video card (Ati X700). How can I test this ? Also I have never experienced any crashes or weird display was I was under battety. Any idea ? Thanks.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
*** On S-Video I also get the lines – sorry for the mistake.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I have three LCD monitors these are having same problem , first i bought one it worked good but afterthree month it came problem that no brightness in display on time coming the light after sometime it is comimg bklack if try to re on it will come the brightness one time again go off then I bught another LCD monitor, after 4 month came to this same problem again bought 3rd one also same I gave these to repairing shope the tecnician tried to repair this but he could not do, now I am trying to repair this I thoght the problem in FL inverter section and I changed the transistose with new but no progress coming same problem can u help me to solve this problem.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Daniel Laverdiere,
If lines appear on both internal and external screens then most likely you are right, the problem is related to the video card. The only way to test it is replacing the video card. If the video card is integrated into the motherboard, you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard.
August 16th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
cj2600 thanks for the answer. Fortunatly the video card is not onboard (ATI X700 128mb). So I will to buy a new one. Any idea where I can find a cheap one ? Meanwhile, I will stil to underclock the core and the memory you think that might helps, the default on the card is 351/330 ?
Thanks
August 19th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
my laptop as a bunch of colored line in i how can i fix this
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
Hi,
I also posted this on http://www.asklaptopfreak.com which was a site referenced in one of the posts on this site. I wanted to post it here too in case the two sites are handled by different folks. Please excuse any duplication.
First, thanks for your site and suggestions. I like your simple yet informative explanations.
I have a Fujitsu A6020 just purchased new about a month or two ago. Occasionally, when I power up the laptop, the screen appears off for a few seconds, and then I see a slightly lighter blank screen. This is the point where I’d normally see the BIOS copyright and boot screen. Nothing happens after this point.
If I turn the system OFF and then ON several times in a row, it seems to eventually start up with a blank dark screen but then the expected lighted screen with the BIOS copyright text. However, it seems to be getting to the point of taking more and more OFF/ON attempts before it boots correctly. I have to turn it OFF and ON many many times and eventually it seems to work.
I haven’t broken it down to something specific that I do to get things working. I’ve tried unplugging the power, the battery, and while those things sometimes seem to coincide with things working, there’s nothing concrete and repeatable. I’ve also done those willy nilly things and still the screen is black and then a lighted black (without text) while I try turning it OFF and ON over and over. Eventually, though, if I keep trying, it boots and shows the BIOS boot screen.
I think related to this problem is this: When the operating system is fully booted, and I close the lid, or the system goes to sleep, it never ever seems to show the screen again. As before, the screen is not pitch black. It goes from pitch black to a lighted black but it remains blank, no bios copyright appears.
The problem with sleep seems to always happen. Once again, if I power on, it goes from pitch black (off) to a lighted black and the system does not resume. If I want to try doing the power ON and OFF thing, I end up shutting down the sleeping OS which is lame as you can guess. Because of this, I don’t consider “sleep” to be an option which is further lame. I tend to either always turn off the unit or I go to hibernation. When I resume from power off or hibernation, I get the same results of a blank screen without light for a few seconds, then a lighted-black screen that is basically blank. (When I say lighted blank, I do not mean white, but I mean the difference between a completely OFF screen and one that appears to be ON but black. I’m calling that “lighted-black.” It appears to be more ON than when it was just black/off but there is no graphics or text. As usual, if I turn the unit OFF and ON over and over, the system eventually goes to a normal resume where I can see things. For hiberation, it resume from hiberation just fine.
With all of the above, the problems seems to have gotten worse. It seems to take more and more OFF and ON steps. Each OFF and ON step always goes from black/off, to a lighted black/blank, and eventually when I’m lucky, I get a BIOS boot, or resume or whatever is normal.
One other note: I have PGP Whole Disk Encryption (WDE) installed. That modifies the MBR and boot so that the WDE password screen is displayed first. This allows WDE to know how to decrypt drive contents so that it can resume with the Windows boot. Since the BIOS gets first shot upon boot, and since that’s what I should always see (the copyright), I don’t see how WDE could be affecting the display in this fashion. But until I investigate, I don’t want to assume, so I mention it for whatever it’s worth.
On final item relating to PGP WDE: Since the first screen displayed after the BIOS is the WDE password screen, when I do my OFF and ON attempts to get the display to work, I think it’s booting and going to either that screen or something. If WDE isn’t related to the cause, I guess WDE’s presence is a sort of a blessing in disguise because it means the system will not start doing a full boot while I cannot see the screen – when the screen is a lighted/black but neither the BIOS copyright nor the WDE password screen is visible.
Please excuse that I mention its lighted blank, but I see the other suggestions you offer, and when I see the screen go from black without light, to a lighted black, it makes me think the backlight is working but that some other thing is messed up. There’s nothing glitchy and when it works, and the OS is running, it doesn’t go blank or anything like that. It is a odd problem to me.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
Regards,
Tom
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Info to add to my last post: When the laptop starts, it is blank, and then it goes to a lighted blank and nothing else happens (as mentioned). If I switch to external display at that point, I do see the WDE password entry screen which is what appears after the BIOS screen when things are working. So it appears as though it is booting just fine. This makes me think there’s a problem with the video signal getting to the LCD display. I say this because I do see the display go from completely off to a lighted blank. Would that be a good LCD that’s not getting any signal? In other words the back light seems fine. Also I notice right when I turn it on, it does slightly flicker (very low, almost unnoticable) but it doesn’t look like a “bad” flicker. It just looks like its turning on. But the LCD does not seem backlighted when it flickers. Then several seconds later, it goes from blank to lighted blank. Then I have to turn it OFF an ON, experience the same thing over and over until it works. Once it works, it works. So I repeat myself!
Pls excuse but I’m trying to convey the nuances properly. Thanks for any tips! Regards, Tom
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Another thing I just noticed: When the system is fully booted and video is displayed perfectly, the display will go to the “lighted blank” mode as part of the normal “Turn off the display” settings. In other words, the mode of the display when it turns off as part of the Windows timeout is the same look it has when it has a problem while booting. When the display “turns off” it goes to that lighted blank mode which appears to be not really completely off. So I guess part of the question is can anyone think of a reason as to why the display would be in its “turned off” mode during boot, and why would it take many attempts to turn the system OFF and ON before I can see the BIOS screen and have LCD video during boot?
August 25th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Okay, you’re gonna kill me.
But I don’t want to neglect providing any new info. I noticed that when the problem occurs, where the screen turns to a lighted-blank upon boot but there is no BIOS copyright, the brightness UP and DOWN using FN-F6 and FN-F7 on the A6020 works. In other words, I do see some light going up and down. That means the backlight works right? So the problem is some video signal issue right? Or could it still be that inverter thingy? Thanks!
August 25th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Tom,
I see that you posted a few comments here, so I’ll go through them one-by-one. I’ll quote a part of your comment and then post my thoughts.
Isn’t it still covered by the manufacturer’s warranty?
Test your laptop with an external monitor and see if you can get external video. If the external monitor works fine, you might have one of the following problems:
1. The video cable is not making a good connection with the LCD screen, so the LCD is not getting any data signal from the motherboard/video card. The LCD screen changes color a little bit and it indicates that it gets power but not the data signal. In this case reseating the video cable connection on the back of the LCD screen might help but it means you’ll have to open up the laptop.
2. It’s possible that you have a faulty video cable.
3. Finally, it could be a bad LCD screen itself.
Find out what version of the BIOS is installed on your laptop. Then visit the manufacturer’s website and find out if there is more recent version available for downloads. It’s possible that this issue was addressed in the latest BIOS release. Updated the BIOS if needed.
I work mostly with Toshiba laptops and have seen similar issues before. Some laptops will not display video after hibernation/sleep mode. In this case updating the BIOS is one of the possible solutions.
You can try this. Start the laptop without the hard drive installed. You should get the BIOS/Logo screen even without the hard drive. If you still experience the same problem with video even without the hard drive, it’s not a software related issue and has nothing to do with WDE.
You are right, if the external video works normal the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly (loose connection, bad video cable or faulty LCD screen).
That’s right. If you can change the brightness of the screen, the backlight and FL inverter (power supply for the backlight lamp) are fine.
Here are some suggestions:
1. If the laptop is still under warranty do not open it up and send it back to the manufacturer.
2. Check the latest BIOS release and see if it has a fix for any video related issues. Update the BIOS if you can.
3. Make sure the video cable is making a good contact with the screen. Try reseating the video cable connection on the LCD screen.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Why do in modern portables PC’s manuals they tell to not leave the LCD screen open? If the place is safe and the portable isn’t moved at all, isn’t it better to leave it always open instead of opening/closing constantly?
August 28th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Hi cj2600,
Thanks for your great input! The BIOS was already up to date, and I also checked the external video and it worked fine. I tried removing the hard drive and the BIOS screen still did not display.
It is not only under warranty but it also has a service plan with Fry’s. The thing is, even with a service plan, it is a MAJOR pain to prep the unit for service not to mention prep for the interim loaner. I wanted to exhaust trying anything that would allow me to fix it on the spot. I hesitated opening it up because it was on a service plan and I didn’t want to risk breaking it or violating the warranty. So I didn’t try to reseat the cables inside. But thanks for that suggestion.
I have to tell you, dealing with turning the unit in for service was so much more of a pain than I expected. Since hard drives are so large now, they take FOREVER to back up. Not only that, setting up the loaner has been nothing but a pain. I’m still working on it!
Oh, and guess what? Vista is such a lovely beast when it comes to cloning a disk. They use some new signaturing or something where, after I clone, I was getting these nasty failed boots. So they tell you to use the “startup repair” by booting the Vista DVD. No prob right? Wrong! I’ve got a Fujitsu OEM Vista which means I don’t have a legit bootable DVD, and Fujitsu doesn’t have the startup repair option which is standard with Vista DVDs. I yelled at them via support chat.
So part of the trick was to use their restore DVD to do a restore, and then use that partition as a basis for whatever. It takes a lot longer than startup repair because I found a Release Candidate 2 DVD of Vista, and low and behold, it was able to repair my startup of Vista release version. It was very quick once I got around to it. I mention it for whatever it’s worth.
After waiting in Fry’s for about an hour or so processing my laptop, I find out it will be several weeks! Uggh… I thought a service plan was faster but they gave me an A6025 loaner which is nice but guess what: It’s SATA not PATA!!!! Arrggh… all that imaging was with drives that work on my A6020 which is PATA but A6025, which looks identical to my A6020 is SATA. That bit so friggin’ hard. Totally lame. What a headache. I hope you’re laughing because I’m beyond frustrated.
It’s already been like a 5 day effort. What do normal non-tech consumers do? I always wonder that. They must pull their hair out.
Oh, one thing I should mention: Although I just bought the unit from Fry’s with service plan, I tried Fujitsu support to see what magic they could offer. They told me my unit was still under warranty until some time next year, but that the LCD was not covered and would cost like $750 or something. That’s lame. I decided it was time to use the Fry’s the service plan. It too a while, and I got an SATA loaner, which is better than no loaner, and it will take several weeks to get my unit back, but at least I won’t have to pay $800 for LCD stuff.
Hey, I have an ACER 8104wmli that is not that old (like 12/2005 or something), and it developed LCD problems too as well as what I think might be severe motherboard or electrical issues. It was very glitchy, then the LCD went out and so forth. I tried to get things going to no avail. I need parts which I haven’t been able to find. Do you refurbish those or can you recommend a way for me to invest reasonably to get that thing up and running. It has no warranty or service plan. I was trying to find a duplicate unit for parts but no luck yet. I’m wondering if you handle Acer 8104wlmi and was wondering what your cost would be to get it going. It may need a new LCD, possibly new power board or motherboard. (???) I have a feeling you’re not going to want to touch it, and you’ll probably agree that finding a spare is my best bet. But I’ll not answer for you.
Well, thanks for your help. Great site/blog here. Thanks again!
Regards,
Tom
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Hi… i have a fujitsu siemens laptop… the display screen is not displayed at all.. not even flickering… system boots.. the green lights show and also the DVD ROM boots… but there is nothing on the screen… also tried connecting to an external monitor but still there is no display… let me tell u the details… actually was trying to install windows and it installed only half way and rebooted.. then the system wouud not boot at all.. then removed the hard disk and it would enter into bios.. i put back the hard disk and it does not go to bios even… later somehow tried 3-4 times and it started booting with the hard disk also and was going into bios.. then suddenly there was no display on the screen.. and since then it is like that… i m not getting any display now… so can u tell me what the problem can be?? thanks a lot.. hope i have not taken much of ur time….
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hello, I dont know if this is the right post to ask questions, but this is the problem:
Laptop was working fine until one day LCD screen shows Solid white color. I checked external video and everything was perfect. How could I fix this?
September 5th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Hey I’m trying to get my Toshiba Qosmio Laptop to work. I push the power button and my power light comes on. Nothing happens on the display. I can hear the DVD-RW spin and I can hear the hdd (I think that’s what I hear) but thats it. Nothing happens after that. If i press a few buttons after a few tries I can get it to beep back at me (one beep for each button I press on the keyboard) I have hooked the laptop up to an external monitor but I get nothing. I tried pushing the function key and the “switch display” key but nothing. There is an orange LED under the power button that lights up when power is connected (AC or battery) and it turns blue once you push the button. Also this LED goes off when the screen is shut, so I know that the “screen close button” works. Could you suggest anything?
September 6th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I have a Portege M100 sub notebook. I am getting an RTC checksum error. I assume it is dying and needs to be replaced so I went to find repair manual on your site but could not locate one that would show me where the RTC battery was. I was tolde that the 4010 was similar but when I opened my M100 the RTC was not located n the same spot. I don’t want to pul out the wrong thing so could you describe the location of it.
Thanks for your help
Annie
September 6th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Sahil,
I think you might have a faulty memory module. Try reconnecting the memory, move it from on slot to another, replace with a known good memory stick.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Inan,
You can try reseating the video cable connection on the back of the laptop screen. Sometimes, when the video cable is not making a good connection with the screen, it might turn white.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Annie,
I think I know where the RTC battery is located in a Portege M100 notebook. Do you see the wireless card cover on the bottom of the laptop? Do you see another small cover located close to the Wi-Fi cover (on the right side from Toshiba sticker)? I think the RTC battery is located under the small cover.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Matt,
Is it Toshiba Qosmio G15 or F15? Did you purchase this laptop in the United States?
I believe one time Toshiba had a recall on these models and they were replacing motherboard even on out of warranty laptops (some kind of video card failure). I don’t know if this recall is over or not. If you have Qosmio G15 or F15 laptop, try calling Toshiba and ask them about any recalls. You might get a free repair.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:35 am
HI! I HAVE A 170S4FG/00 PHILIPS LCD MONITOR AND THERE IS NO PICTURE.ACTUALLY IT SAYS NO VIDEO INPUT.THE BACKLIGHT COMES ON JUST AS NORMAL WHEN I TURN ON THE PC, BUT NO DIPLAY.CAN ANYONE GIVE A CLUE IN WHAT IS GOING ON? THANKS IN ADVANCE
September 11th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Hi,
I have a compaq laptop. Everytime I turn on, it gets me to the re-booting part but does not go all the way through windows and then it shuts off. It does it over and over again.
September 17th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
i have portege m100, not working properly screen is blank, if powr panel “on” indicator power (led) light green so… orange blinking,
proccessor fan is on, thank is advance
September 20th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I have got a Toshiba SP6100 laptop. I connected it to a external LCD TV ( TV with a PC-IN option ). I can see everything that I do on the laptop – on the screen.
Only the videos I play on the laptop ( MPG / wmv / avi files ) on various players like “windows media player / VLC player / etc – do not show on the screen.
What could be the problem ? help please
September 25th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I have a Gateway M210, and Im having trouble finding the lid switch. I havent removed the LCD, trying to avoid that. Noone can tell me where this switch is on my laptop. Any ideas anyone? Whoever gives me the answer gets 20% a piece of chainmaille, big or small!
September 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Beth,
It’s possible in this model you have a magnetic lid close switch. A piece of magnet is located somewhere under the screen mask and the switch itself somewhere on the motherboard under the cover. When you close the display, the magnet activates the switch and the backlight turns off.
This type of switch cannot get dirty and get stuck inside the case. I don’t think they fail a lot, at lease I’ve never seen one.
So, if you having issues with video, I would check LCD, inverter and cable first.
September 27th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Mother in laws laptop had faint image on screen. When I connected a VGA monitor you could only see the XP startup and then the external would go black and say “no signal” I could not get the ext. screen to toggle on. Until I read #550 and popped the lid switch back up and now the laptop screen works perfectly.
Thank you
from the son in law
October 6th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Hi, hoping you can help me i have some questions.
I received from a friend a nx5000 for free without screen, i have plastic parts and the video cable, not the lcd (broken).
I have connected a 14.1′ screen but all i can see is a black screen which in a few minutes turns in a brighter screen which shows only coloured vertical lines.
The external screen works fine.
the questions:
1- May i test this laptop (born for 15′ screen) with a 14.1 inch screen (on HP store both screens are sold for this laptop)?
2- May i connect any XGA 15′ lcd screen with 30 pins connection or i have to look for special one?
3- Maybe a (video)systemboard failure?
Many thanks and sorry for my english.
Andrea
October 8th, 2007 at 11:03 am
My toshiba when turned on the bottom of the screen is a light blue.i can still operate it ,but i can not see the bottom half .
I have a picture if you have a place i can send it to.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Hi there, i’m currently using a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. It is reaching its three year old mark but recently I encountered a problem.
Following a game session, the screen had many glitches with random lines and boxes. It appears in both my lcd and my external monitor. It also appear in the BIOS. I called tech support and they diagnosed it as a graphics card problem (a diagnostic test showed a video memory problem).
After replacing the graphics card, the problem went away. However, 2 weeks later the problem returned slowly. More and more lines started appearing and now it’s completely covering my screen.I’m wondering whether the graphics card is the only problem as the problem returned so soon. Is there a possibility of other malfunctioning system occuring concurrently that caused this problem? How do I check?
Furthermore, I think during the process of replacing my video card I think i might have damaged the lcd screen. It goes dark after using it a while although I can still barely make out what’s on the screen. It also happens if i move the lcd lid. Is this an inverter problem? Is there a way that I can make sure?
Sorry for so many questions.. this has been causing me much anxiety.. Hope you can help.. thanks in advance!
October 19th, 2007 at 9:12 am
My sister has a Dell Latitude D410. Recently it fell out of her bag and now the image on the display looks like a photographic negative and is very faint. When an external monitor is connected the display on the external monitor is normal. Do you think this would be an inverter problem? Thanks in advance. You have a great site!
October 21st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Wayne Jay,
This is not an inverter problem. You still can see the image on the screen and it’s still bright, even though it’s inverted, right? If the screen is still bright, there is nothing wrong with the inverter board.
I would check connections between the video cable and motherboard/LCD screen, it’s possible one of the connections got loose. There are two different places to check.
1. Connection between the video cable and the motherboard. Usually you can access this connection after you remove the keyboard.
2. Connection between the video cable and the LCD screen. In this case you’ll have to take apart the display panel because this connector is located on the back of the screen.
Reseat both connection and see if it help. If the image on the screen is still inverter, most likely the LCD screen has been damaged and you’ll have to replace the screen.
October 28th, 2007 at 5:12 am
The screen in our Presario 2700 only shows rainbow color vertical lines and similar random changing patterns. The laptop works fine when connected to an external monitor, and the LCD also works fine when switched to another laptop (same model). What is not working? We are not sure which part to replace. Help!!!
October 29th, 2007 at 1:05 am
My Asus laptop LCD becomes completely white
external output is good
Somebody suggest me about inverter
October 30th, 2007 at 5:03 am
I have a sony vaio. I have just changed a broken dc power connector and after reassembly the lcd is acting up. It will work right up until windows starts to boot and then cut out. External monitor works fine. Any ideas?
November 18th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Hey cj.
I have an IBM T42 laptop that’s display went very dim a few weeks ago. I came across your site and found it very informational.
When the lid close switch is pressed it will flash for a moment like it is trying to turn on but failing. Everything works fine on an external monitor. It was showing all the symtoms of a bum inverter. But I may have jumped the gun and purchased a new inverter, but after I installed it there was no signs of the problem being solved. Same old story.
But a few days later when I started it up, the screen came on just fine, but it would shut back off after a few hours. Very bizarre behavior. Now I can sometimes get it to turn on by rapidly pressing the lid close switch. It seems to have a pinkish hue at forst but it goes back to normal after it is on for a little while.
Do you think that I could have received another bum inverter? Or do you think that I have some loose wires or a bad connection somewhere? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Matt
November 27th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I have a compac presario v5102 nr and the screen is usaly blac but back light is workin and display starts working after hooked up to external monitor. need sugestions
November 27th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Steven,
Have you tried Fn+F4 keys in order to switch video signal from the external to internal mode. I could be wrong but I think Fn+F4 is the right key combination.
Turn on the laptop, hold down Fn and then press F4.
Check the BIOS. Maybe you can find some settings for internal/external video output in there.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I have a dell insprion 2200. The lcd has a “C-shaped” area on the right hand side that is lighter (almost white) than the rest of the display. You can still see the display, but it is faded in that area only, making lighter images difficult to see. Any idea what might cause this?
November 30th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Jodi,
This sounds like a problem with the LCD screen. Most likely you’ll have to replace the screen.
December 10th, 2007 at 1:15 am
i have a wird problem. just landed in dubai via bangkok. i used my laptop in bangkok and it was fine, then when i arrived in dubai the screen has distorted colors, pink is everywhere, wierd color spasms. only thing i can think of that may have caused this is thex-ray scan or something i went through at the bangkok airport. does anyone have any remedies??
December 13th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
well, thanks for the helpful advice. i figured that the problem is the ose butto, which i abt a couple of tims (ca 1000
). after tapping the screen will turn back on. however, it turns off right away after about 10 seconds. i tab again and its on, after 10 secs ists off again. i guess the switch is wasted, however i would like to to know if you could give me some advice before i start some major action here.
thanks in advance,
phil
December 17th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I have replaced the inverter board on my Thinkpad A31, but still only have faint image on screen. Toggling F7 will bring up screen corectly only for a second. Attaching output to working monitor gives a good image. What should I try next?
December 18th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Me again
i havent done anything just yet. the problem prevails though. however, i found out, that the scrren stays on, when i reduce the brightness level from max to about medium.
It doesnt fix the problem but at least allows me to work on my thinkpad until i find a solution (that should not involve too much monex
)
December 25th, 2007 at 4:03 am
Hi,
I’m having a problem with my Gateway M680, the screen, more often than not, will not get a signal. The backlight stays on though, I don’t think there is a problem with the inverter. I, embaressingly, can sometimes get it to work the old fashioned way, by hitting it, but I’d like to try to fix this.
Since the screen does sometimes work fine, I think the problem must be with the video cable, do you think this might be right? Or could there maybe be a loose connection somewhere on the motherboard? Any ideas where to look?
Thanks
December 25th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I have a Gateway 600yg2 laptop and the screen has gone completely black. I have a external monitor hooked up and it works fine. The laptop monitor actually came back on a couple of times when I started it, but when I turn it off for a while then turned it back on it was black again. When I go to display properties it always says the montitor is not activated, so I tell it to activate the montor, and after rebooting It says the same thing (this monitor is not activated) any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You Chet
December 26th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I have a sony vio, and we have had trouble with it from day one but it seems to always work itself out. well now it powers up for a split second the screen flashes, the lights across the bottom flash and then it shuts down. I can also get this same afffect when I push the av button. First is there anyone that can help,second am I going to lose anything from my computer. All of our xmas pictures from yesterday are on there. Thank you
December 26th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Thomas,
That’s right. If the screen lights up most likely there is nothing wrong with the inverter.
Did you test the laptop with an external monitor. It looses only internal video or external video is bad too?
I would check the video cable first. There can be some kind of connection issue between the video cable and the motherboard/LCD.
Check connection on the motherboard first, this one is easier to access. If it doesn’t help, try reseating the video cable on the back of the LCD screen. I think reconnecting the cable might help.
By the way, if video disappears on both internal and external screens then this problem is not related to the video cable. Something else is going on on the motherboard.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Jennifer,
Here’s how you can backup pictures from the hard drive.
Unfortunately there is no simple solution for this problem. It could be something simple like a faulty memory stick or something complicated like a problem with the motherboard. Just in case, try reseating the memory module or try installing it into the empty slot.
Also, it’s possible that your AC adapter is dead. The laptop flashes because you still have some charge left in the battery, but it’s not enough to turn on the laptop. It’s possible to test the AC adapter with voltmeter and find out if it’s bad or not.
December 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I don’t even know if its reparable at home so this may be a pointless question. But after a fall onto a hard