What can you do if the laptop LCD screen turned completely white? From my experience I can tell that this problem may be related to the following:
1. Loose connection between the video cable and the LCD screen.
2. Defective LCD screen.
3. Defective motherboard (I assume the graphics card is integrated into the motherboard).
Here’s an example of a laptop with white screen. When you turn on the laptop, it starts but the image on the screen is completely white right from the beginning. In my case it was a Toshiba Satellite M45 laptop but this problem may occur with any other brand.
Most likely you still can use the laptop with an external monitor. Just connect the monitor to the VGA port on the back or side of your laptop and then switch the video output from internal to external mode.
On Toshiba laptops you can toggle between internal and external screens using Fn+F5 keys. Hold down Fn and press on F5 until you get video on the external monitor.
On IBM laptops use Fn+F7.
On HP laptops use Fn+F4.
It’s possible that you have to use a different key combination on your laptop but you get the idea.
On some laptops, in order to be able to use the external monitor, you have to connect it to the laptop and then restart the laptop so the external monitor is detected by the laptop.
I noticed that in some cases the laptop screen may turn white because of poor connection between the video cable and the LCD screen. If you want to check this connection, you’ll have to take apart the display panel because the connector is located on the back side of the LCD screen.
These laptop service manuals and disassembly instructions may be useful.
I always check the video cable connection first. Reconnecting the video cable may fix your problem.
If reconnecting the video cable doesn’t help, most likely you have a problem either with the LCD screen or with the motherboard.
The best way to find out witch one is causing the problem is testing the laptop with another working LCD screen. Without this test you’ll have to guess because as I mentioned before this could either bad motherboard or bad LCD screen.
You’ll have to disconnect the video cable from the LCD screen (connector 2) and the inverter board (connectors 3 and 1). After that you connect another working screen and test video.
For this purpose I’m using one of my test LCD screens. My test screen is cracked and because of that you see a wide white band in the center but it still works fine for this test.
The original screen is white but my test screen works normal (except the crack of course) and I can see the image. After this test I can tell that the problem must be related to the screen.
After I assembled everything back together and connected the original LCD, it’s still white.
CONCLUSION. In my case this problem is related to the LCD screen and it has to be replaced.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Hi, I recently dropped my Toshiba Satellite A215 and the screen cracked. I would like to replace this myself, can you give me instructions for this task. Also can you recommend a website where I can buy a LCD screen for this model. Thanks.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:31 am
cj2600 you are doing a great job, thanks and I need your help. I am from Bangladesh and I purchased a used Sony VAIO from a lady from England. I didn’t know the LCD had troubles and after a few days, the screen started to turn white with streaks of dirt black. I thought the LCD was gone.
But strangely if I didn’t turn the laptop on for sometime, the display started to come back again. Recently, the display comes back very rarely. What I cannot figure out is that, if the LCD is gone, how come it is working some of the times. I tried with external monitors and it worked fine too. I checked with Laptop electricians, not very good in this country, and they suggested to change the LCD. What would be your suggestions? I know changing the LCD would be an easy solution, but is there anything else that might be going wrong?
June 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I have a problem with my laptop NEO M54G.. when I plug-in an LCD projector and activate the function button to feed the video to the LCD projetor. Nothing happens! no image is projected. But the projector detects the signal coming from my laptop, yet there is no image projected.
I’ve already press the function button + F7, check the cords and even tried plugging in 2 different LCD projector models (AcER and SONY) Same thing happens, the LCD projector detects the video input but shows no image. what could be the problem?
June 9th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Thanks for all your help.
I’m actually asking this on behalf of my Mum who doesn’t live near me so I haven’t actually seen the screen. Yes it sounds like she has a 1 pixel line down the screen - two of them either side. I thought it might have been the cable, but perhaps it is the screen. She is taking it to someone to look at today. I thought I’d ask about an external monitor as getting the internal laptop one is going to be expensive as it has to come from overseas…she hasn’t got access to an external monitor otherwise I would already have got her to try, hence my question.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Anne,
I think it depends on the laptop brand and model you have. On some laptops you can toggle in BIOS, in other laptops you have to wait until it boots into Windows.
I was working on a Toshiba laptop. This particular model detects an external monitor automatically.
1 pixel vertical lines? Sounds like a problem with the LCD screen.
Can you find an external screen and try?
June 5th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Hi,
When you connect an external monitor and use the function keys to toggle, does this work before logging into windows? I thought you would have to be logged into windows for the function keys to work but from your photos it looks like you have the boot sequence showing up on the external monitor….laptop in my case is a HP Compaq M2045.
It hasn’t got a white screen but it has developed a thin vertical line an inch in from either side of the screen which is various colours depending upon the background colour. Thinking it might be the cable or possibly screen, but getting an external monitor would be cheaper than replacing the laptop screen…but if the screen eventually dies completely, would want to know that the external one will work without needing to get into windows first…