My laptop screen is dark. I plug the laptop in a power strip in the family room and the screen works fine. I put it back in the other room, plug it into the power strip and the screen does not come on. The computer is on, but the screen will not stay on.

there could be a bunch of problems firstly unplug it and plug it back in and see if the red light is on at the bottom if it is then it is getting some sort of power if not then look at a powerboard if it s getting power then unplug it for a couple mins and plug it in in a dark room while looking at the screen and see if it flicks for a sec if not the look towards main board if it does then turns off the look at your led strips being shorted

Hey Lea,
Try the steps below to see if they will resolve this issue that you are having with your computer. If this does resolve the issue you can email me. My email address is listed below in my sigfile.

1) UNPLUG THE LAPTOP
2) REMOVE THE BATTERY
3) HOLD DOWN THE POWER BUTTON FOR ABOUT 30 SECONDS TO 2 MINUTES
4) THEN PUT THE BATTERY BACK IN
5) START IT UP..

Thank You,
Dell-Jesse L
Dell Social Media and Communities
email [email protected]

I cannot promise an easy fix for this and you will need to work through the following to eliminate possible causes.

1.) Try the laptop on another monitor, if it works on this, you can eliminate the graphics chip, which is the part that usually causes problems with blank screens. If the external monitor does not work with the laptop, you will need to investigate the problem by stripping the laptop.

2.) If it does work on an external screen, the inverter, the backlight or the VGA cable are at fault. If you can see a very faint image on screen in a darkened room, the possibility is that the backlight has failed, if there is no image, the inverter has failed. Of the two, the inverter is the cheapest to replace at about £10.00, whilst the screen will cost about £40-70 to replace.

(The vga cable may have also come loose, unlikely, but stripping the laptop by removing the screen assembly will show this. You would also need to do this to replace the inverter and / or screen.)

3.) Before stripping the laptop, try these steps:

• Check the Adapter is putting out the correct voltage by connecting a multimeter set to 20volts DC to the DJ jack that plugs into the laptop. The red probe should connect to the inner of the jack and the black probe to the outer. If you get a lower reading, suspect the adapter is at fault.
• Check the port that the adapter plugs into, it should not be loose or wobbly, if it is slack, it will require replacing.
• Remove the battery and ac adapter, press the power button on and hold it for 30 seconds, this clears the cmos. Plug the ac adapter back in and try it, if it works ok, reinsert the battery. If it fail again, suspect the battery.

After taking all these steps, and getting no resolution, you should now look into the possibility that the motherboard is damaged, specifically the graphics chip. These tend to fail if the laptop has overheated. They cannot be easily checked, however, stripping the laptop will at least show you if there was dust build up in the CPU fan area and cooling radiator. If this was heavily clogged, it is almost certain that the chip has failed

The link below may help you should you choose to dismantle your laptop
http://laptoprepair.ca/news/11780.html

Hook a spare monitor to the video output on the back of the laptop, if okay it means the video card is working fine. The problem is a bad inverter board, "located under the LCD display" or the back light is defective behind the screen, "usually means a screen replacement"

This can be caused by a number of reasons more than likely though it's a hardware issue.

The first thing I would try to resolve this issue is to update the bios to the latest firmware.

You can download it here.

Make sure all other programs are closed before you run the update. Also make sure you don't do ANYTHING else or move the computer during the update

Let me know if that resolves your issue otherwise it's plan B ;)

The batteries do go bad overtime and will no longer hold a charge but the laptop should still work as long as the power cord is connected. If it still does not work with the power cord connected then it is most likely the power cord, these can go bad, but make sure that the power is securely connected and that if it is plugged into a power strip that it has not been turned off, try another outlet just to rule it out as well.

It sounds like LCD backlight problem. Bring your laptop to a repair shop.

Some searching on forums convinced me the inverter had failed. Picked one up for $65, removed the frame around the screen, removed the mounting screw for the inverter, and unplugged both ends of the old and plugged in the new. Put it back togeher and fired it up, bright again. Key here was that a remote monitor still worked which meant video card was OK. The lamp could have been bad, but apparently the life of lamps is pretty decent.

remove the battery try pressing the FN key and F4, F5, F7 (which ever your lap uses to switch between external lcd and internal screen)