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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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 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 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 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 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 7:22 am
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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 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 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 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 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