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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August 30th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I am very frustrated. Currently my laptop screen is a bunch of blue vertical lines. My backlight is at the bottom of the screen. If I press on the TOP of the screen by the latch it will make the screen jump.If I tap on the backlight itself the screen will jump as well. What is the problem?? I am currently hooked to an external monitor and it works fine that way. I need to get this fixed asap and not sure what the issue is. Sometimes (if Im lucky) i can get the laptop screen to work for a brief 20 seconds and then it goes back to how it is. Someone help, Plz!! lol
August 30th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Hey, I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. Almost a year ago I started having this problem. My laptop would just white screen. It kinda looks like the picture under “Laptop LCD screen is solid white color.” I have already hooked it up to an external monitor and even my tv and there is no signal. From the information I have gathered it most likely be the cable from the screen to the motherboard. I stopped using the laptop for about 9-10 months, I just wanted to see if it started working and 2 months ago I started it up and it worked fine. Has been for the last 2 months. Last night I left it on, but with a cooling pad underneath, with fans and vents, and today I was working on it and just suddenly it white screened. I have had the computer for about 4 maybe 5 years. The warranty from dell only last 1 year or something. The specs on the laptop is:
-(If I remember correctly)Intel Pentium M Processor at 2.0 GHz
-2 Gb of RAM
-running windows XP
I wish i had my literature with me because I don’t remember what the graphics card.
Anyways please help me, I have school work on there and I just updated the RAM on the computer. Thank you for any help.
August 28th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Taylor J. Silenizio,
Yes, it’s possible but you said the backlight turns on for a while, so I don’t think that your problem is related to the cable. I think it’s either bad inverter or faulty backligth lamp. With a bad cable you wouldn’t get any backlight even for a moment.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Is it possible that the cable connecting that goes from the motherboard to the inverter is faulty? I could take pictures to help only because I noticed on one of the wires there is no plastic coating around it unlike the other wires surrounding it?
August 27th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Nik,
Here’s my guess.
1. Bad connection between the video cable and motherboard/video card. Try reconnecting the cable.
2. Could be faulty video cable. Try replacing the cable.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Hi
I am working on a DELL Inspiron 640m. When the laptop boots up the LCD is completely bright green (even while displaying the DELL logo on immediate startup). The screen stays green until Windows Vista loads up its logon screen. At this point the screen looks like as if a glass of water was thrown on it i.e. all the colors are “washed out”. I tried replacing the screen with a new one but the problem remains. If I hook it onto a external monitor the display is absolutely fine on it.
Could you please suggest what might be the problem here?
August 26th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
paul rowland,
What kind of system restore? You know, some people are using same therm for different processes.
Were you running Windows system restore trying to take it back to the previous restore point or reinstalling the OS from the restore partition?
Can you reinstall Windows from the recovery disc?
August 26th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Taylor J.,
Most likely you have either a faulty inverter board or bad backlight.
Try replacing the inverter board first. It’s easy, cheap and you have a good chance to fix the problem. If not, you’ll have to replace the LCD screen (the backlight lamp is mounted inside the screen). You can try replacing just the backlight but it’s not easy and should be done only by an experienced tech.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
David filles,
In Toshiba laptops you have to use Fn+F5 keys in order to switch between internal and external screen.s Hold down the Fn key and press on F5 (sometimes it’s necessary to press a few times). Can you get video on the external monitor?
Plug in the external monitor first and than turn on the laptop.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Hi,
I’m having a serious problem with a laptop that im repairing:-
Its a toshiba satellite laptop celeron. The screen appears to be grey as soon as start up but i can hear windows loading music after about a minute. I tried connecting to a external monitor nothing. Somebody suggested holding fn and f12 i think to switch between monitor that didnt help. How can i isolate the problem ;-
it is bad motherboard, inverter , or bad lcd.
Any help will be very much appreciated:-
Trainee Computer technician.
My moto:-
Anything can be fixed with patience and persistence.