How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems
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?
Entry Filed under: Laptop Tips and Tricks
807 Responses to “How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems”
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Pages: « 81 80 79 78 77 [76] 75 74 73 72 71 … 1 » Show All
October 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
cj2600,
Thank you for the response. I just re-booted in Safe Mode. The same issue occurs. My wife said she kind of dropped the laptop but caught it before it fell. Is it possible the video connector to the mother board came loose? Isn’t it relatively close to the power switch on the Presario?
This happened once before when my 18 month old son slammed the laptop closed. It didn’t work right for two days but then suddenly worked fine for three months until now.
Thanks,
Darryl
October 12th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Darryl,
Did you test your laptop with an external monitor? The external video is garbled too?
Also, try starting your laptop in Safe Mode (press F8 when Compaq logo appears on the screen). If the screen works fine in Safe Mode, try uninstalling and reinstalling video driver.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
The screen on my Compaq Presario is all garbled with yellow-green colors. Everything is distorted until I push down the power button the computer is going into sleep mode, you can see the screen return to normal before going to black.
When I press the power button again to return from sleep mode it returns to garbled. Can anyone help?
October 11th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Hey thanks a lot for this article…that LCD lid close switch was stuck somehow on my laptop. I bent a paperclip to get at it and everything is fine now…again thanks…
October 4th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
HEHEHE What difference that makes ?
I want to know how to fix’m becuase they suffer from the same problem I believe it must be a common problem! on these Compaqs
I buy them on Ebay to repair and resell! ( I love to fix puters)
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I have a HP Presario V6000 running XP. The screen show only a black line on top and then after the window booted, you see different color strip (like the garbled pic) I connected to an external screen but not picture show on the screen at all. What can be wrong?
October 1st, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I have an Alienware Area 51-M 766SN0 with a GeForce FX 5600 GO. The screen has lines up and down at when starting up. The lines are like:
=================
The text is also garbled.
I hooked it to an external monitor, same thing.
Have dis assembled 100%, re-seated memory modules, re-seated the video card, etc. No go.
I can’t find a replacement video card short of a buying a complete (used) laptop to replace the video card with.
HELP!!!!! This maybe an old system but it was $3500+ when I bought it and still works great, with little signs of wear!!!!
September 29th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Michael Huppman,
1. I don’t know why the mentioned the AC adapter. I really doubt it.
2. The first thing to try would be replacing the inverter board. Inverters fail more often then backlight lamps.
3. If new inverter doesn’t fix the problem, most likely it’s bad backlight lamp.
It’s way harder to replace the faulty backlight lamp because it’s mounted INSIDE the LCD screen. Take a loot at this post: How to replace laptop backlight lamp (CCFL).
September 29th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Josephus,
7 similar laptops with the same problem? Did you purchased them like that from the same person/company or you purchased these laptops new and they just failed one by one?
September 29th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Hi.
I have an Acer Aspire 5630. When browsing last night, the screen went faint, not quite blank. When I depress the close lid switch, the screen is visible for only a nanosecond. When it is visible the bottom left hand of the screen remains relatively dark. The unit is 13 months old, one month out of warranty.
Any direction would be appreciated. I’ve called Acer on three occasions and received 3 different answers. backlight, ac adapter, fl inverter.