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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June 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I have a Toshiba lap top and I must have pressed the wrong button because suddenly eveything on my screen is stretched out and short. It is very frustrating and I am not sure what I did to it. If you could help me that would be wonderfu.
Thank you.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
A bit more information. Acer Travelmate 4730. Intel centrino.
The problem started around the same time that I connected to a projector for a powerpoint presentation. The next day our IT support person configured my laptop to the school network. Not sure if any of this info is helpful but that’s when the problem started and I havent been able to revert back to correct settings since.
Awaiting your reply. Thanks in advance.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Hello
I have an acer laptop that keeps reverting the resolution to 800 x 600 everytime I logon. I am running windows xp os. It seems to look ok when logging on then it does a quick flick on the screen and it has changed to 800 x 600. I can change it to the correct resolution of 1024 x 768 but when I next logon it reverts back again. How can i get it to stay on 1024 x 768. Please help.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
We have a Compaq Presario laptop that seems to boot but the screen is just black with three wide vertical white lines. When we connect a second monitor, the original laptop monitor seems to work. Any thoughts as to cause. I seem to recall that at some point, I suspected problems caused by standby. But I can’t replicate that. Thanks.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
hi sir,
actually i have problem in laptop diplay Acer Aspir 3000.first of all there was no power at all than i re-assemble it an the power came, but no display.and when i turn on the processor cooling fan run for 15sec: then stop.so it might be processor or fan prob i guess.but not sure .so plz i need ur help.plz give me a solution.thank you
June 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Mohinder,
Apparently you have a faulty backlight lamp inside the LCD screen. The backlight lamp and inverter failure symptoms are very similar.
If a known good inverter board doesn’t fix the problem, the next step will be replacing the LCD screen. It’s possible to replace just the backlight but it’s not easy at all. Here’s the backlight lamp replacement example. If you have no experience fixing laptops, I would suggest replacing the whole LCD screen.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Dylan,
Test your laptop with an external monitor. If the image on the external monitor gets distorted the same way as on the internal screen, your problem might be related to the video card.
1. If your laptop has a discrete video card, the video card has to be reseated or replaced.
2. If the video card is integrated into the motherboard, it’s possible you ‘ll have to replace the motherboard.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:05 am
LEO,
I think it’s either bad LCD screen (more likely) or bad video cable (less likely). You’ll have to guess which one to replace first. I think it’s bad LCD.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
my lcd screen has horizotal lines, and then screen turns completely green, no BIOS or anything shows up, and if i plug it to external monitor it all works fine, ive checked lcd cable on back of lcd and seems fine i reseated cable on board and i get the same thing, waht might be the problem??
thanks
June 5th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Hello there good sir!
I have a toshiba satellite laptop. For the last few months, whenever I bump or move the laptop on the desk, the graphics flicks to a dsitorted grid kind of pattern. You can see that windows is still running, like if you press ctrl alt del, you can see that something happens on the grid mess display.
Any suggestions? Loose connection? Take to a fixer?
Thank you.