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 26th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
John,
Sounds like a bad LCD screen and I don’t think that you can fix this problem at home. Apparently there is a bad solder joint somewhere on the LCD controller board and when you took it apart, you accidentally press on that joint and temporarily fixed the problem.
You’ll have to replace the whole LCD screen.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:24 am
I have a HP Pavilion zv6000. The LCD slowly went out until I could no longer have anything but a black screen. We hooked it up to an external monitor and it works just fine. In looking into different things on the monitor, we noticed that if you ppress slightly into the top right corner of the computer lid it works just fine. However trying to hold the screen with one hand is very hard to do anything on the computer. Any ideas? My husband thinks we just might needs a new LCD screen and I say no?
January 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
hi can anyone help me with my satellite pro A60 it powers up
with 2 green lights but nothing comes on lcd screen i have tried connecting it to external monitor but still no image still black
do you think its the motherboard i have stripped it down and reasembled it again same problem. it has no hard-drive but im trying to run a windows live cd . but it still should show someyhing on screen anyway. thanks
January 16th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
hello! Good day! i need some help on my Acer travelmate 2480 series with a video problem. when i turn on the laptop the screen appears to be dim. the backlight is off. this is the second time i have exprerienced this problem but solved it by reseating the video connector. it works for a week. i reseated the video connector again but its not working anymore. have tried to find the lid close but i cant find it near the hinges. help me please. waiting for your reply. God bless.
Melcan
January 14th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I have an Asustek Computer running Windows XP Pro. The screen on this notebook PC suddenly went black; it had been displaying a Quickbooks screen for about 10 minutes as I worked on another PC nearby. There is no hint of a picture on the screen, but when use the power button to turn the laptop off and (after 30 seconds) back on, I can hear the hard drive spinning. I tried to boot into Safe Mode, but it made no difference. I attached a monitor which had been hooked up to an identical laptop, but there was no display on the external monitor either. I don’t know much about working on a laptop, but it sounds like maybe a video card? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks
January 12th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
have a IBM T42 with 14.1″ lcd (1000×800). the lcd is fine on the top 1/3 of the screen – botom is blank (gray ?). external video works fine. I took apart lcd and got it to work (don’t know what I did !). WHen assembling it (very carefully on the laptop) by clipping the outside bezel back, it went back to the 1/3 screen. can’t seem to figure out why I can’t fix this. tried flexing it, replacing cable, inverter board, and even taking apart lcd layers. any suggestions ? Thanks, John ajshoe@cinci.rr.com
January 10th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
I have a problem w/ my loptop hp dv6000 dark screen. when i push the power on all the led is on but the lcd monitor is dark ,ill put onother outside monitor but itsi not working.can you help ne w/ my pc.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I am hoping someone can help… I have an Acer 5610 laptop I checked the lid close button, reseated all cables, including the lcd video on the motherboard, I have replaced the inverter, replaced the back light but messed that up bad, so moved on to new lcd… but continue to have a very dim screen. It works fine when on external monitor. When I boot up I get a flicker of correct lighting in the bottom right side of the screen when the Acer llogo flashes, but only for less than a second.
Any ideas? I have already replaced the laptop since it is my lifeline for work, but at this point my teenage son and I are kinda having fun and he would be the recipient if we can resurect it.
Thanks!
January 7th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
good idea about renoving motherboard again, i will try that. and check for grounds, i have checked it with cover removed, the same no pic,and the switch was the first thing i tested…… and i forgot to say, when hooked to a pc monitor thru the vga plug it works great…
January 6th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Bob,
Did you test the lid close switch?
I guess you’ll have to remove the motherboard again and test the laptop outside the case. The top cover has a lot of metal parts on the bottom side, make sure they are not shorting the motherboard. Try turning on the laptop with the top cover removed.