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?
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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.
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!