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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February 26th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
GERALD ONYEBUCHI UZOH
Take a closer look at the screen. Is it completely black or you can see a very dim image?
Did you test the laptop with an external monitor? Do you know if the external video output works fine even thought the laptop screen is black?
February 26th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Ikusan Charles,
Here’s your possible solution, follow the link:
Free repair for some out-of-warranty HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario laptops
Try it first and hurry up. I believe the warranty extension for HP dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 ends soon.
February 26th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I have hp-dv2000 notebook.I notice that if i press the power button,it boots to windows but you cant see the POST.The flourescent is on.
What do you think could be the problem and the possible solutions.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:58 am
I have a HP compaq nc6120 laptop. The screen wil temporaly display HP but return to black. while the laptop is on. All this problem happen on the process of booting.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Hi, I want to thank you for all the wonderful posts. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop where the video isn’t working correctly. It looks fine when it’s on but it won’t stay on very long. It will boot up and I can login to Windows XP but after about a minute the screen will go dark. There is a very, very faint image but can’t see very well unless you shine a flash light on it. At any rate, I first replaced the inverter board but problem persisted. I have just replaecd the backk light and it still does the same thing. What would be the next step? Do I need to simply replace the LCD? Any help you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks again for all the great information on your website.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Hi,
Many thanks for a very useful and informative site.
I have Toshiba p100-188 satalite 2.5 years old. Started having graphic problems with xp, thought it was a virus. Colours for some parts of xp went pink. Have tried recovery disc for toshiba, but have now been getting realy poor quality graphics with virticle lines 4 together spread equally accross screen. LCD is blank on start up, with visual only by external monitor. Re-installation only seems to work part way through
with safe mode indicating that xp has not been fully installed.
Have strpped the machine and cleaned the heat sinks etc as described on this site MANY THANKS FOR THAT.
Is it virus problem effecting recovery area of system, or a chip problem as George in 81 suggests, even with such a new system, or a faulty graphics card. NVidia Go 7600 card, looks like sperate card when I took apart, with graphics card and its own heat sink, being connected by one small white multiconnector.
Each time I have tried to reinstall system, it has bad graphics and a blue screen crash mentioning nv4.mini.sys.
Any experiences or suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks again.
February 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I have a toshiba M105, you can open the screen about 2 or 3 inches, any more and the display goes out. I took the laptop apart and I was able to get the screen completely open without going off. Now I cannot get the screen to come on, although I can see a very faint image. So I replaced the inverter…..no go….so I replaced the lcd screen…..still no image…..so I took it apart further, it has the magnetic lcd screen switch…when I have the laptop booted up I can barely see the screen, I place the magnet over the detector and the laptop goes into hibernation and completely shuts off the screen…..what do you think the problem is? Do I possibly have 2 bad inverters?
February 14th, 2009 at 11:27 am
One thing I forgot to mention – the components are glued as well as soldered to the motherboard, so careful how you chisel them off
Also, I suppose you could say this is an un-rebadged Packard-Bell, as the documentation says “Packard Bell is a trademark of NEC Computers International B.V.”
February 13th, 2009 at 9:01 am
NEC i-select M5210 (re-badged Packard-Bell Easynote L)
I fixed mine!
First remove the motherboard (instructions here: ftp://ftp.packardbell.com/pub/itemnr/7400360000/)
and on the bottom side is a fuse labelled F4. Use a multimeter to check if this has blown. If it has, check across the large ceramic capacitor next to it. There will probably be a short. There is another large ceramic capacitor on the top side of the board, above the LCD socket. One of these is probably shorted. With mine it was the one next to the fuse. I don’t know what the value should be, but I got away with just removing it. I used a 750mA fuse to replace F4 (educated guess), put it all back together and Hey Presto! The backlight came on.
Obviously, great care is needed in reworking this kind of stuff, and any warranty will be void, but if you’re not happy using the notebook with an external monitor then you’ve got nothing to lose by having a go.
February 13th, 2009 at 4:53 am
I have read all posts till about 300 and could not find my issue statted. Hopefully you are familair. Laptop works find 90% of the time. The other 10% you can be using the laptop and the screen goes black, backlight can be seen around the edge. Any keyboard actions do not bring it back, turn off and on with power switch system boots up and is perferctly normal. I’m awaiting for it to happen again with external monitor as cannot re-create issue. Can you advise of any further test would cable re-seating resolve this type of issue? Thanks