ArtDee

I've got a Dell Inspiron 8600 with XP SP2 that has been acting up. The lcd display is often dark at startup. Not always. Sometimes when I start it, it works perfectly. Other times, it never lights up. Once it's on it stays on if I keep working. It doesn't go dark while I'm using it. It sometimes stays dark after it's gone to standby, though. It sometimes works with an external monitor only. But not always. It does work more often with the external monitor than the laptop display.

By dark, I mean I can see information on the screen if I shine a very bright light on it in a darkened room. Just looking at it normally, though, it looks completely black. There has never been any flickering, dimming, color changes, or other things that (I would think) might indicate a bad backlight. Once it's lit, it stays lit--if I keep using it, as previously mentioned.

I've installed the latest driver (my video card is a GeForce FxGo 5200). Didn't help. I've also tried a new inverter. Didn't help. Any ideas? Bad video card? Anything else I could do to diagnose the problem?

Mikhalkov

That's how you usually test if the backlight has gone out, so you're backlight is probably starting to die.

TriggerFinger

Or it may be a bad inverter. If backlight is bad you will need to replace the whole LCD. You may replace the backlight but IMO a difficult thing to do. Easier is to replace the inverter.

Testing the inverter is also possible as per this article:
http://www.fonerbooks.com/test.htm

ArtDee

Yep, I already tried a new inverter. Thanks.