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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January 6th, 2008 at 1:47 am
That’s one of the, hopefully, funniest thing I’ve seen in my whole life. This morning when turning on the computer, all lines were gone!!! Maybe the screen interfered with a magnetic source or somtehing. It is on a shelv just above my audio amp. How knows…
So everything’s fine now.
Cheers!
January 5th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Andybird,
Test the laptop with an external monitor. Find out if you see same line on the external video.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
KarenC,
You don’t have to remove the hard drive, but it’s a good way to troubleshoot the laptop. Knoppix (live Linux) runs directly for the CD bypassing the hard drive. If there is nothing wrong with the motherboard, the laptop will fork fine with Knoppix when the hard drive is remove.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Diego,
Usually you can access both memory slots from a door on the bottom of the laptop. Check out service and maintenance guide for HP Pavilion dv2020, most likely they have instructions for accessing the memory. I don’t have time to open up this 8.18MB file but usually you can find disassembly instructions in there.
You simply remove the memory module from the memory slot on the motherboard and then install it back. Overtime contacts on the memory module get oxidized and the module can loose connection with the motherboard. Reseating memory might help.
If you have two slot and only one module, you remove the module from one slot and install into the second slot.
January 5th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Thanks for the tip! I did not know that you needed to remove the hard drive before testing with Linux Live. I have an old Gateway notebook that I am going to try this with. When it would not operate with linux live with the Hard Drive still in, I chalked it up to a bad motherboard. I have been watching for months for a motherboard for that gateway at a good price.
January 5th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I have a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook T series PC. I bought it about one year ago but used it very few. This evening I started it and… surprise, a lot of coloured vertically lines appeared on my screen. To be more precises, the lines were more preminent at the top of the screen all the way from left to right but only about 1 cm from the head, while the middle of the screnn and the bottom was clear. Except on the left and the right sides of the screen, the lines were visible from top to the bottom.
Now the strangest thing is that in 3 hours since I turned the computer on, all those lines are less and less visible as the time goes by. Now I still see clearlly some of them, especially the ones appearing at the screen, but much less than in the begining.
I will post a new message ago tomorrow morning and tell if the lines are still visible.
In the meantime, maybe you guyes have an idea about where the trouble comes from.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Thanks a lot!
How do I reseat the memory module and move it to the empty slot. I guess I have to open my laptop?
January 5th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Diego,
Could be memory related problem. Try reseating the memory module, move it to the empty slot. If you have two memory modules installed, try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each module installed into each slot. If you have only one memory module, try replacing it with a known good one.
If the hard drive is still OK your files are not gone, they are still on the hard drive and it’s not difficult to access them. You can remove the hard drive and install it into an external USB enclosure. After that connect the enclosure to another working computer and get your files back.
If you connected the hard drive to another computer and you can see your profile but cannot access it and get “Access denied” message, you’ll have to take ownership over the files.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
KarenC,
Here are some tips for troubleshooting your laptop.
You can unplug the laptop video cable from the motherboard and test the laptop with external monitor when the LCD is unplugged.
Additionally, you can remove the hard drive and try booting the laptop from a live Linux CD (Knoppix for example). This will boot your laptop into Windows-like environment, where you can test the laptop and see if it still freezes. For this test you don’t need any Linux knowledge, because it will look like Windows with similar desktop and icons.
If the laptop still not working properly even with the HDD removed and LCD unplugged, you might have another issue.
January 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
bongaul,
First of all, test your laptop with an external monitor. Does the external monitor works fine and you can see the desktop? Do you see the same lines on the external monitor?