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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July 29th, 2008 at 3:16 am
my young brother spilt water over my 1 years old toshiba satellite laptop.. apparently the water went through the keyboard and came out from the bottom of the laptop …. after trying to dry my laptop by leaving it in the sun… i switched it on and all i can see is the toshiba sign appearing and then everything goes blank then laptop turns of by its own
what can i do about that?
July 26th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Henry,
From my experience, a red tint indicates a problem with the CCFL lamp.
Take a look at the fifth picture in this post: Troubleshooting laptop with backlight failure: Troubleshooting laptop with backlight failure. Does it look like your screen?
July 26th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I have a dell inspirion notebook that the screen will come up on momentarily, then the backlight will go dead. When the screen is on, it has a red tint to it as if I went into the gama adjustments and turned green and blue all the way down. I have replaced the inverter with a known good unit, and it is still the same. I do not have a spare screen at this time to test, however if you use an external monitor, the video is ok. I have replaced many bad LCDs and inverters, but am hesitant to charge the customer for a new LCD and that not work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Kim Phillips,
Is there any image on the bottom part of the screen or it’s completely black? Can you get image on the entire screen if you torque or move the screen? If you can, probably you have bad LCD.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Prashant,
Yep, could be loose connection between the cable and the LCD screen.
This display panel disassembly steps should be similar to this Toshiba laptop. Not the same, but similar.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:49 am
I have a Dell XPSM140 laptop that only the top half of the LCD screen shows up. However, if I hook it up to a regular monitor it works fine. What could be causing this?
July 26th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Hi
My laptop screen shows a picture only in a certain position when I move it up or down. Otherwise it stays blank. When I connect an external monitor the picture is always present. I suspect a loose cable connection in the display unit. I have a toshiba M105-S3041 model. Can someone tell me how to get access to this connector in the display unit? I remove the four screws but then what do I do?
Thanks
July 24th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Rohit Kaushik,
I’ve never seen failure like that.
1. It’s possible the inverter board is going bad and doesn’t provide enough power to light up the backlight lamp.
2. Could be bad backlight lamp.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
What would the problem be if the left half of my laptop becomes dim, but if I turn my laptop off and let it sit, the screen will be fine for a while?
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Shinji,
In order to narrow down the problem you’ll have to test the laptop with an external monitor.
If both internal and external screens have the same bad image, most likely it’s related to the motherboard/video card.
If external monitor works fine, probably you have a problem with the LCD screen.