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?
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January 27th, 2008 at 9:37 am
karen,
The laptop will not turn at all? Can you see the hard drive LED flashing when you turn it on? Does it make any sounds at all or the laptop is completely dead?
Did you try booting the laptop with an external monitor attached to find out if there is video on the external monitor?
The first thing to try would be reseating the RAM module and then replacing it with a known good one. It’s possible you have bad memory.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:30 am
arun,
Check out this post: Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
January 26th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Toshiba Satellite p25
it seems to power on but there is no bios display on lcd or external monitor. is it the cpu or the montherboard? thank you.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
my laptop when plugged in the power light is on but the computer doesn’ come on,the screen is black. what do you think?
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 am
hi
i have ibm thinkpad laptop
the lcd display of the laptop
on the display many of vertical line of different colour
tell me the solution of this prolem
thanks
arun kumar
+919914469331
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Randy,
– The flickering problem could be related to the inverter board, loose connection or failing backlight inside the LCD screen.
– The red line is not related to the inverter and most likely is not related to the video cable. Probably it’s related to the LCD screen.
Try reseating connections first and see if you can get rid of the flickering.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Barry Carlson,
Check out this thread: Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?, it’s dedicated to laptop LCD problems.
Most likely this problem is related to the LCD screen, not to the video cable. Just in case you can try reconnecting the cable on the motherboard and LCD, to make sure it’s making a good connection.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I have a hp pavillion zv6000 that works fine except for the screen. I have checked other lcd screens with this laptop and they have worked fine but my main one has the following problems. When I boot up, the hp screen comes on and flickers a bit then a red line close to the right end appears. After booting the desktop continues to flicker on and off with the desktop showing then a black screen with cloored lines then back to the desktop. Occassionaly when I move the screen it works fine but when I let it go it continues to flicker. I wa sthinking of buying another screen but I’m hoping it’s the inverter or a lose cable. Thanks for any help you can give me-keep up the good work.
January 20th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I have a Presario 2200 laptop and recently a 208px wide vertical bar appeared on the right of the display. The bar seems to have slightly more brilliance than the remaining screen. A day or two after the previous incident another vertical bar appeared 416px to the left of the first. It is also 208px wide and the brilliance seems to be at maximum. Everything on the screen is functioning normally with the exception that it is difficult to read text in the washed out bars – especially the one near the centre of the display.
I’m starting to think that it is a video display cable problem as plugging into an external monitor gives a normal picture.
Have you seen this before?
Many thanks
January 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Shwan,
If you replaced screen and cable but still having the same problem (whites screen) there is a problem with the motherboard. I don’t know what else could be wrong. It’s not related to the inverter board by the way.
I would check the memory first. In order to get video on internal or external screen you have to have good motherboard, CPU and memory. If replacing memory doesn’t help, probably you have bad mobo. CPU failures are not very common.