Screen Dark no light

Shine a flashlight on the dark screen to see if you barelysee the icons on the desktop. If so, then the LCD Inverter is bad.

Plug in an external monitor and see if the display shows up on it. It can beany kind of monitor even the old big fat crt monitors as long as it has a vgacable to connect to your computer's vga port. If so that proves yourvideo card is ok. The video will show on most systems when you rebootwithout you having to do anything. Some systems will require you to hit the FN(Function key) + F1 thru F12. Hold down the FN key then hit the correctkey for displaying on the monitor (F1 thru F12). The correct key willnormally have CRT/LCD on it or it will have the icon of a display.

If you see no icons by shinning a flash light and the external monitor works,then your screen is bad. If you see no icons by shinning the flash lightand nothing shows on the external monitor, then most likely your video card isbad.

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

Does the fault appear on the laptop screen aswell? It appears by your description that the fault is only on the external monitor. If the screen comes on for a moment and then goes blank as described, then this appears to be an invertor fault. It is very common among laptop and tft screens and requires the invertor inside the panel to be replaced / repaired. Simply plug the screen into another computer to confirm.

hi are you sure it displays nothing or is the display dark ? try shining a light at the screen see if you can see anything. if you can see something on the screen then it is quite probably yout lcd inverter, this is a part that is responsible for lighting up the screen.
if nothing on the screen try pluging a monitor into the the laptop if it displays to an external monitor try switching between monitor and lcd this is usally Fn + F4 or F5 you should see a screen icon on the correct key. if you still get no display then my best guess would be the screen is at fault.
techbug

the LCD backlight has failed, you will need to replace the LCD assy (about $200)

click on start>control pannal>adobe gamma> set ur

If it showed a pinkish tint on the screen before it went out it could be the backlite. If you can see a faint screen when you turn the room lights out it chuld be the inverter. Inverters are cheap ... a used one for around $8 on ebay. Try that first. Make sure that you buy the EXACT model that is presently in your laptop.

your laptop inverter is going bad. need to replace. you can get it on ebay cheap. the inverter is responsible you the lighting up of your screen. thats the solution REMEMBER TO RATE THE SOLUTION

might be going into a powersave after it boots...try checking the power options

This just happened to me last night.  My web research indicates that the monitor is bad...others have had the exact same problem.