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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November 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Hi, i wonder if u can help. My laptop screen keeps flashing on and off, more so when i am on the internet. Do you have any suggestion as to what may resolve this? I have taken the keyboardoff and chacked the connections between the lcd screen and the board and theyre fine. I’m not sure if it is the back of the lcd screen? many thanks, (Compaq presario m2ooo)
November 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am
sm,
Connect the external monitor again, start the laptop and try switching video from the internal to external mode using Fn+F8 shortcut (i believe that’s the right one for Asus laptops). Can you get video on the external monitor?
If it seems like the laptop is still working (you can hear normal noises and windows sounds) but the laptop screen is absolutely black and blank (no backlight at all), it’s possible that your problem is related to the video cable.
First, check connection between the video cable and motherboard. Try reconnecting the cable.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:44 am
hi, i have an asus m50s notebook. i’ve been having problems with the cpu fan and having a lot of overheating problems. i bought an external cooler which seemed to fix the problem but recently it started to overheat again and turn off automatically when it got too hot. now all of a sudden the video has stopped working. i know its not a monitor problem as i connected an external monitor and still had no video output. when i turn the computer on, i can hear the normal boot up sounds and the computer seems like it’s working. i’ve tried using the boot disc and the reset button on the leptop but there’s no change.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
kendra,
First of all, test video output on the external monitor. If the external monitor works fine and this problem appears only on the laptop screen, it could be:
1. Bad connection between the video cable and motherboard or LCD screen. Reconnecting the cable on both end can help.
2. Bad video cable. Try replacing the cable.
3. LCD screen failure. You’ll have to replace the screen.
I really cannot tell which one is causing the problem without testing the laptop.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
i have hp dv2917 and im having problems with my laptop. it happened about a week ago when i noticed that there is some weird red and blue lines on the screen. i had a colored desktop background then and most of it would change to red except for the white ones.. i tried restarting the computer and when i did, i saw the entire screen turn red (instead of black) during the loading of microsoft. what is the problem here?! my laptop is fairly new and almost not used for games. is this a video card problem? pls help
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
deisler,
I don’t think you can fix it. You’ll have to replace the LCD screen.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
basically what i did was change out the whole top of the laptop that contains the lcd, and also i used the cable that came with lcd. should i try to replace the cable with my original cable? any more ideas? thanks alan
October 29th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I have a ASUS laptop. Recently there is flashing on the bottom part of the screen.. and the area of flashing seems larger n larger….any idea to solve it ??
And the rest of the screen works just fine?
Sounds like the LCD screen is failing. I think you’ll have to replace the screen.
cj26oo,
yaya, the rest of the screen works fine..what is meant by LCD screen is failing ?? any other ways to solve the problem except replacing ? THX very much ~
October 29th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
deisler,
And the rest of the screen works just fine?
Sounds like the LCD screen is failing. I think you’ll have to replace the screen.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Collin,
If video on the external monitor fails the same way as video on the laptop screen, most likely there is a problem with the laptop video card.
Just in case, try reseating memory modules. Try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each module separately.