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:
Fixing notebook LCD screen with water damage.
Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
Laptop screen shows strange colors. What could be wrong?
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
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 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….
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
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 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 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 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 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 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 19th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
my laptop as a bunch of colored line in i how can i fix this