I replaced backlight and inverter but the laptop screen is still dim
I have a HP Pavilon dv1000 laptop and the screen flickered with black lines for about five months before going totally dim. I have had both the backlight and the inverter replaced and the screen still does not light up. Is this a motherboard issue? Or is it a cable issue? Can this be repaired or does it have to be replaced?
Have you tried reconnecting the video cable on the motherboard? It’s possible that the video cable is not making a good connection with the motherboard and reconnecting the cable can help. Just unplug the video cable from the motherboard and plug it back in.
Does your laptop have a display close switch? The display close switch is a small button located somewhere close to the laptop hinges. This button turns off the backlight when you close the display. If the button got stuck inside, the backlight will not turn on even when the laptop is on and the display is opened. Try tapping on the lid close switch and make sure it moves up and down without any problem.
February 20th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I have an Asus Eee Pc 900, the LCD cracked so I replaced it with a new one, but now the screen is dim. And the backlight and inverter are working. I also checked the brightness setting and its all the way up. and I do not have a display close switch. What else could be causing this?
November 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
I am having a similar problem with a Sony Vaio.
Splash Bios screen on start up, extremely dim display, falsh light can see OS running.
When i run a magnet across the top of the keyboard the screen lights up, so i think it is a problem with the magnetic lid switch. This switch is located right beside the biggest magnet in the laptop, the hard drive, clever.
I am trying to find a way to disable this feature, not sure if it can be done.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Tim,
In the comment 25 you said:
That means the motherboard/video card work properly.
Most likely you have one of the following:
1. Bad connection.
2. Failed video cable.
3. Failed LCD screen.
Check the connection first.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:25 am
I’ll look into that this weekend. Thanks for the suggestion. If that fails, does that mean the video card on the motherboard could be bad or would it be the lcd?
thanks again.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Tim,
Check connection between the video cable and motherboard. It’s possible that the video cable got disconnected. If the connector is half way out, push it in and test the laptop.
I posted your question and some suggestions here: http://www.asklaptopfreak.com/laptop-notebook-help/2009/11/11/toshiba-satellite-lcd-screen-stopped-working/
November 11th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I believe I may have the same problem. My Toshiba Satellite’s lcd stopped working. I tested by attaching an external monitor to it and the display works. I couldn’t figure out if it was the back light, lcd, or inverter. I’ve shinned a flashlight on the lcd and cannot see anything. Though when I dim the lights, I see the lcd lite up. Does anyone have any ideas?
thanks much.
Tim.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Freak,
The back light works, I took off the plastic around the lcd and I do see the back light lit. I did purchase an inverter and replaced it, the same.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Bob,
It’s not very clear if the backlight works or not?
November 7th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Hello, I received a Toshiba P25-s609 from a family member. The lcd screen is dark, but I do see a back light. When hooked up to an external monitor, it works perfectly. I’ve also tried replacing the inverter, but problem still there. Could someone give me ideas on what I can do or the problem maybe? Much appreciated.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Dan,
Most likely you have a defective video cable. It’s a know issue with some Satellite M305 and M305D laptop. I posted your question with some suggestions in the following post:
Satellite M305 has horizontal lines on the screen.
Follow the link. Please post if Toshiba fixes your issue at no charge.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:44 am
hello people i have toshiba m305-s4822 laptop for past couple of months my laptop screen is giving me problems. sometimes my screen would have like horizontal lines and after while screen will get blank but i can still see backlight is on. if i turn it off and turn right back on it will work fine for couple of hours and it will start flickering and go back to same thing. so i dont know if this is inverter problem or lose connection with my lcd cables pls let me know or email me thanks i appreciate
August 16th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Dell Inspiron E1705. Power brick went intermittent. On last gasp, my WUXGA 1920×1200 LCD screen lost color depth pixels and looks like bad TV reception (ghosting/flickering. Red pixels seem ok. Lost several bits from blue and a few green. I made color test pattern of 3 large areas of Red, Green, Blue. Red was nice and solid. Blue had dark bar patterns that repeated every 8 bits of color, green is every 64 bits. The colors are perfect on an external moitor.
Looking at the hardware, there seems to be an LVDS terminator plugged into the motherboard with a voltage regulator and panellink chip. Somehow I suspect the LVDS transmitter and receiver are involved, given that it drops/picks certain bits in Blue and green only. I also don’t think this is an inverter issue, but I really don’t know enough. I’ve read that the inverter provides varying voltages to pixels, but I don’t believe it. Seems like it only powers the backlights.
How can I determine if the LCD screen needs replacing or the motherboard?
May 21st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I’ve got a HP dv6000 that had water spilled on it. The lcd went black, but had display to an external monitor using vga port. I got a new lcd and it comes up, but very dim (need flashlight to see).
So I got a inverter, same issue (very dim), tried a different motherboard, same issue, tried a different cable, same issue. I then used a lcd I had laying around from a DV1000, same issue.
So I’ve now tried two LCDs, two cables, two inverters and two motherboards, yet the laptop lcd still comes up very dim. It won’t brighten with Fn + f8, or under power settings.
So now I’m not sure what to do, any suggestions?
April 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Ok seem everyone has the same issue. When pluged in the screen is brite and when unpluged it goes dim. You can see faint image on the screen. The issue seems to be that when pluging in the power adapter it send a signal to motherboard Power up Screen brightness. If you power up you computer with just battery power windows boots to splash screen then never gets brite. You can see very dim screen. Ajusting the briteness from the laptop keyboard will not help. Now if you plug power in, screen appears normal. I ran all kinds of diagnostics. It is true that the pluging in of the power supply send a signal to Motherboard to either Use battery mode or powered mode.
The answer to this one issssssssssssssssss. A SYSTEM RELOAD
What causes this is unknown at the time. It appears to be a setting of some sort in windows or it could be a malicious virus.
Symptoms:
Laptop Screen is bright when pluged in
Laptop Screen is very dim when unpluged
Laptop will boot to win splash screen then go dim when run on just battery power
Laptop on battery power will not let Fn Key Up down arrow for brite will not change briteness.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
and also I closed the laptop while connected externally and it goes on standby so the lid (magnetic) switch is fine, and I tried adjusting the brightness no help there neither.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I have the same problem. My presario v5294nr model laptop HAS A VERY DIM screen, I replaced the video cable the inverter and the LCD still dim, it works great on an externel moniter, I tested the new parts by putting the into another laptop and they work fine. Any ideas? Is it possible a driver or system configuration error can cause something like this????
March 4th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Oops, one other thing…it works just fine to an external monitor. One strange thing though, my computer seems to not be detecting my laptop monitor because in the NVidia control panel it only lists my 17″ external, and in Device Manager only one “Universal PnP Monitor” is listed under the monitors tab.
Jeff
(not sure why it says “What” after my name in my previous post, my assumption is that I didn’t notice text I’d entered by accident. :p )
March 4th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Today I spilled about 2oz of 1/2 hot chocolate, half coffee on my HP DV6000 Pavillion notebook.
For the first few minutes the laptop worked fine, but afterwards the display went out. I opened up the case and cleaned everything with rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs as best I could, but after all that all I managed to get was a faint HP start up screen in Normal Mode, and faint HP start up screen AND faint desktop in Safe Mode. Disassembly involved removing the keyboard bezel and keyboard, LCD bezel, speaker grille/button panel (where the bulk of the liquid went) and the rear LCD cover. There was some chocolate on the foil behind the LCD. I checked the connections to the inverter and unplugging/replugging did not help. The main LCD cable coming from the casing towards the screen has a sort of grey cloth over it…this cloth was a bit wet near the base of the screen.
Rapidly opening and closing the laptop screen resulted in blue screen of death, but a reboot put it back to how it was.
I’m not able to locate the close-lid switch, even though I removed the trim from the hinger earlier. I could re-remove them to look for it again if necessary…
The inverter does not appear to have been soaked, but it’s hard to tell deep inside.
Any suggestions on what I can try next? I’m not an expert, but after all the disassembly and reassembly I had no screws left over and it’s at LEAST as good as it was before I started messing with it, cleaner for sure anyway!
Thanks in advance,
Jeff
What
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
HELP! I had a cracked screen, I bought a new one and just connected to see if this worked, spot on, the following day I then connected this into the laptop correctly and switched it on and it was a dim display, I thought the inverter had gone so a got another one, and still dim, I’m at a complete loss, I can confirm the backlight in the LCD is working, I’ve checked whether the inverter is getting power and it’s receiving 3.5volts, Could the new inverter be dud or simply that there isn’t enough power getting to the inverter. could it be the screen cable to the motherboard?????
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Please can some hi tech dude help….
I have dark screen on an acer aspire 2920, I have tested back light and inverter and vga cable and cant see any damage to pins on the motherboard, it’s not the switch as it’s magnetic and I tested this, can I solder form the dc socket or motherboard to power the inverter with a new cable ?????
November 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
When encountering issues about lcds, first thing one should do is plug it into an external monitor. If no video, on external monitor, then its obviously video card or motherboard depending on laptop. If video displays on external monitor its typically inverter or backlights. Backlights are typically are soldered at the ends so this makes it very difficult in replacing. If inverter doesn’t fix it, I’d suggest new lcd. You can get almost any computer part on ebay new. Just be careful who you choose to purchase from. Most lcds nowadays and be purchased for under 200$ Most issues with “dim screens” are inverters, especially if you notice the lcd getting hot in the front base.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
hi,
i got compaq presario laptop, when pluged power my laptop screen became dim, i can see the letter in bright light, can i know what is the actual problem of that laptop, iam very much worried of my laptop. please help me telling the problem, when i connect to external monitor i can see the display.
July 20th, 2008 at 6:13 am
I have been trying to fix a compaq presario c500. It had a cracked screen so i replaced this. It then only showed a dim picture so I changed the inverter. Showed a clear pic for first boot, then dim after restarting. Strage thing is that when the power lead is plugged in the screen is bright but running on battery the screen is dim. There is also a faint hum from the inverter depending on brightness. Im at a loss as to which bit is faulty. Any help appreciated.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I have had both the backlight and the inverter replaced and the screen still does not light up on my Toshiba Satellite p105-s6147. My screen is still dim. The Laptop does not have a visible lid close switch button. I think is has some kind of Magnetic switch. Help, what else could it be. I originally replaced the Inverter….no change, then I replaced the CCFL backlight. External video souce works fine.
February 4th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Dan,
Could be bad backlight lamp (CCFL lamp) inside the screen, bad video cable or even bad motherboard, but most likely this problem is related to the inverter board. You cannot tell without testing the laptop with a known good inverter board. Replacing the inverter board will cost you somewhere from $60+inverter to $150+inverter. It depends on where you fix it.
Sounds like the battery problem.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I have a very dim monitor and can read it only with very bright lights shining right on the monitor. Also, the battery will not charge past 43% no matter what I do. When I unplug the AC cable, the battery drains, and when I plug it back in, the battery only charges back to 43%. I have zero computer repair experience, and will need to take it to a shop to have it fixed (Gateway 7510GX). Could anyone tell me how much a backlight and/or inverter repair would cost at a local shop? Is this even my problem?
December 13th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Oh Laptop Freak you are a wonder of nature. I’ve been through my laptop replacing the backlight and screen… to no avail… the doggone display close switch was stuck… even the broken power button now works… thank you, thank you, thank you.
Toshiba 3005 s303
December 4th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Husam,
Most likely you have a problem with the backlight lamp. This lamp is located inside the LCD screen and it’s not easy to replace it. If you have no experience, I wouldn’t recommend opening the screen because you damage it.
But if you have nothing to loose and feel lucky, here’s how you can take apart the IBM ThinkPad display panel and replace the backlight lamp.
If you don’t want to replace the backlight lamp, you’ll have to replace the whole laptop LCD screen.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Yes I have the same problem as your Daniel. I replaced the inverter board on my IMB thinkpad today and the backlight still does not work. However, when I tap the close switch it turns on for a couple of seconds then dims out again. Also the brightness of the lcd appears to be very low during those two seconds..IF you find a solution please do post it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I have the same problem, i just replaced the inverter and backlight today. But the display is still dim as well, and i reconnected the cables. If I tap on the display close switch a couple times, the screen shows up and then fades away again. Is there another problem I’m not aware of?
When I plug my laptop into an external display, the display is fine, no flickering, lines whatsoever. It’s just a matter of having the backlight consistently on when the laptop cover is open.