Laptop Display Screen Problems
- If the brightness of your screen is intermittent, or is flickering, it is likely that the inverter is broken. The inverter is a small board that controls the brightness of your screen. It plugs into the display and the motherboard, or the main brain of your computer. Try a new inverter board, which you can get from your computer manufacturer, or from a computer supply store, by taking out the inverter from your display casing.
- If there is garbled video on your screen, it may mean that the low-voltage differential signaling cable, also called an LVDS cable, has begun to malfunction, or that the graphics card is failing. To check your LVDS cable, open up the computer and unplug the LVDS, which will be running from the motherboard up into your display. Plug the LVDS cable back in and with the computer open, turn the computer on and check the graphics. If it continues, you may need to take the display out of its casing and unplug the LVDS from the back of the screen. If the graphics issue continues, try another graphics card. If the new graphics card is in, and there are still graphics issues, the LVDS will need to be replaced.
- If there is no video on the screen of your laptop, it can mean one of two problems: that the display has completely given out, or the logic board is not supplying any video to the screen. If there is no video, try moving the screen forward to back several times to see if video appears momentarily. If so, there may be a loose connection. If no video comes on, hook up an external monitor to the computer and see if any video appears. If video does appear, it is likely the screen has died. If there is no video, your graphics card has failed. Depending on the logic board holding the graphics card, you will either have to replace the graphics card, or the whole logic board.
