Blank screen went to turn on the p.c. this morning after a bad storm shut the power down last night. i'm not getting any response from the monitor, the green light flashes and stays on but nothing on the screen. have turned it off and let it sit but nothing. any ideas?

It ISN'T the LCD screen. Since you diagnosed with an external VGA monitor, you now know the problem is the laptop.

(When you connect an external VGA monitor to a laptop, you are bypassing the Video Cable, and LCD screen. You are connected directly to the laptop )

The basic Windows files aren't being found. The boot files. This may mean a bad Harddrive.

Do you have the Restoration CD Disk? Laptop on insert it into the optical drive tray, close the tray.
When asked choose - Repair. (Non-Destructive Installation)

If a checkdisk is done, you have bad sectors on the harddrive.
There IS a special procedure in replacing a harddrive.

[ More information on Harddrives,

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm ]

Regards,
joecoolvette

Turn the monitor off.
Unplug it from the AC power.
Reconnect it, turn it on, and see if it returns to "normal".

Do you have house-insurance that covers electrical damage from lightning/thunder storms?

Try taking on the back of the monitor and pulling the power plug all the way out of it for about five minutes and then plug it back in and restart the computer see if it solved it thanks

This problem could be caused by windows or the monitor .You need to hook up your monitor to another computer and see if you get the same response. If you do check and see in the owners manual if there is a control for power management.Find the control and try to adjust it, or turn it off. If all this does not work than you need to take the monitor in for servicing. If the monitor works,you may have a problem with the computer bios or windows itself. Check all power management controls in the bios and window settings and see if you can find the problem.Check the Microsoft website for this problem with your operating system and a solution. Hope this helps.

same problem, broke my screen, ordered a new screen off ebay and replaced it. now it works fine most of the time but sometimes external display freezes. sometimes goes black, sometimes goes multicolor pixelated (full screen, in blocks, or lines) when this happens sometimes touchpad still works, others not. removing battery usualy temporarily fixes.

This sounds as if you are using the hibernate feature in windows reboot it and reset the power options to hibernate never check the vid connection as well

Is it plugged into an integrated soundcard on the motherboard or is it plugged into a Graphics card either a PCI or AGP? If it is integrated, you may want to look into a different video card for both better video quality and system performance. Let me know if this doesn't work.

check your keyboard connection (unplug and plug again). If not works try another of same type.

Your main board is having a problem.

Ok sounds to me like a power supply problem.. this a a fairly common symptom. I suggest that as a temporary fix you set the monitor to NOT turn the power off to the monitor in sleep mode if possible, in your power settings for the monitor.