During startup screen doesn't show anything, but a grayish white. backlight working, cables ok, and seated correctly, no visible damage to inverter boards. one small black wire leading to built-in webcam is frayed near broken hinge. laptop will start.

check and make sure your video card is seated properly if it is my best guess without doing any testing is that your video graphic card is broken

Hello
Its backlight is not working. Check the CCFL tubes, and it backlight inverter board for fault.
Backlight inverter board will look somewhat like this. If this board has damaged, CCFL lamps won't light up, and there will be no backlight. OK.

A faint and barely visible image on the screen indicates that the backlight(s) that illuminates the display isn't powering on. A device called an inverter board takes DC power from the laptop motherboard and converts it to AC power to power the screen backlight.
Before attempting anything below, be sure and remove the laptop battery and unplug the laptop
You need to take the screen apart and check to make sure that no cables are loose that are connected to the inverter board. If everything is secure, the next thing I would do is try to test the inverter board by hooking up an LCD from another laptop to the inverter and turning the laptop on to see if it lights up. If the other screen does light up, then the inverter board is likely good and your backlight needs to be replaced. Backlight replacement, unfortunately, can be very tricky for even an experienced technician, and many will opt to just replace the entire screen.
If you can't test the inverter board, then it might be worth it to order one and see if installing it fixes the problem.
Youtube is a great place to check for instructional videos on laptop repair, such as this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXLR5yY7X4
Good luck!

Ok if you can see the image when you show a flashlight to it means that the backlight is not working, it could be a simple problem as the backlight power cable loose inside or in worst case the backlight completely damaged. Best to take it to a service center and they will be able to tell you what happened. Hopefully it's just a loose cable.As LCDs do not produce light themselves they need illumination (ambient light or a special light source) to produce a visible image. Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel.Backlights are used in small displays to increase readability in low light conditions.You can search for info on Backlight to learn more about it.

This might be a sign of a faulty LCD cable or screen inverter board.
The LCD cable transfers data signal from the motherboard & video card to the LCD screen. It also supplies high voltage DC power to the screen inverter board. The screen inverter board works as a power supply for the backlight lamp mounted inside the LCD screen. It converts low voltage DC power to high voltage AC power needed for the backlight lamp.

The most likely thing is that your screens backlight or inverter has gone faulty.
When you turn it on, you may be able to see a very very dark image of something (best seen by activating the TV menu). On some screens the picture is still far too dark to be visible though.
With this kind of fault, its down to fitting a new inverter, and if that doesn't cure it, then fitting a new backlight bulb (or bulbs) will sort it out, but these are not jobs that can be done without some expertise at them.
Most TV inverters are large circuit boards inside, and take about 20-30 minutes to change as the whole TV has to be dismantled, but the backlight bulbs are much more complicated (and extremely fragile too).
Unfortunately, there's not much else that can be done except trying changing those 2 parts. Although its possible for the screen cable inside to become disconnected and lose your picture, that results in the screen lighting up brightly (usually pure white if the cable comes off completely).

You replaced the broken LCD screen in your laptop with a new screen but it’s not working.
Does this sound like your problem? Let’s find out what could be wrong and how you can fix it.
First of all, I assume that your new LCD screen is compatible with the old one. Different screens require different video cables. Make sure you new screen is compatible with your laptop.

You did some research and purchased a compatible screen, installed it into the laptop, turned it on and… The new screen is not working!!! What could be wrong?


Before you start to panic, check all cable connections again. Check connection between the video cable, LCD screen and inverter board. Reconnect cables just in case.
Take a closer look at the connection between the video cable and LCD screen. It’s possible you accidentally pulled the video cable from the connector during the screen installation.
The video cable has to be seated properly, all the way down.
Also, on some older LCD screens there are very thin pins inside the connector. Take a look inside the connector, make sure there are no damaged (bent) pins.
You can straighten bent pins with a very small screwdriver but this procedure requires a lot of patience and concentration.
Fortunately, most newer LCDs have a different type of connector, without fragile pins inside.
OK, you have reseated all connectors and cannot see anything wrong but the new screen still is not working. What’s next?

Remove the new screen and connect the old one. If the old one works properly (except the damaged area) but the new one is dead, apparently the new screen is defective and has to be replaced.

Hopefully it has warranty.
Here’s another scenario. The new screen kinda works. You can see a very faint image but there is no backlight.
If that’s the case, disconnect the new screen from the inverter board and plug in the old screen instead, as it shown on the picture below. If the backlight inside the old screen lights up, apparently the new screen has defective backlight lamp and has to be replaced.

Hey how are you!!!

You replaced the broken LCD screen in your laptop with a new screen. Does this sound like your problem? Let’s find out what could be wrong and how you can fix it.
First of all, I assume that your new LCD screen is compatible with the old one. Different screens require different video cables. Make sure you new screen is compatible with your laptop.
OK, let’s say you accidentally damaged the LCD screen in your laptop. A part of the screen still works fine but you cannot use it like that so you decided to replace the screen yourself.

Her is some instructions to follow.

Before you start to panic, check all cable connections again. Check connection between the video cable, LCD screen and inverter board. Reconnect cables just in case.
Take a closer look at the connection between the video cable and LCD screen. It’s possible you accidentally pulled the video cable from the connector during the screen installation.
The video cable has to be seated properly, all the way down.
Also, on some older LCD screens there are very thin pins inside the connector. Take a look inside the connector, make sure there are no damaged (bent) pins.
You can straighten bent pins with a very small screwdriver but this procedure requires a lot of patience and concentration.
Fortunately, most newer LCDs have a different type of connector, without fragile pins inside.
OK, you have reseated all connectors and cannot see anything wrong but the new screen still is not working. What’s next?

Remove the new screen and connect the old one. If the old one works properly (except the damaged area) but the new one is dead, apparently the new screen is defective and has to be replaced. Hopefully it has warranty.
Here’s another scenario. The new screen kinda works. You can see a very faint image but there is no backlight.
If that’s the case, disconnect the new screen from the inverter board and plug in the old screen instead, as it shown on the picture below. If the backlight inside the old screen lights up, apparently the new screen has defective backlight lamp and has to be replaced.


Good luck
ICmanServer

ok , i have had this problem on bolth my dell inspiron laptops , on a 6400 and a 1525 . the 6400 had the lower left corner all dark and the 1525 was split right down the center . i fix bolth of em in a really simple way , turn on ur pc and go into windows , press the blue Fn button and the down arrow untill ur brightness from ur backlight is completely down . keep it that way with the screen on with a screen saver for about one hour then turn brightness back up but not all the way up cuz in my case the problem hapened again , but when i keep it just one click darker , boom problem fixed . from what i can figuere out is that the inverter aint powerfull enought to power the backlight and tends to over heat , so keeping the backlight a bit lower tend the keep em ok

Hi...there,
It's turns blue to power safe mode (yellow) it's prevent futher damaged to your monitor. It's seems you got a busted backlight inverter. Need to replaced a new one...Since you only got it for a few months, send it back to Acer for a replacement of a new backlight inverter... Have a nice day!