OK, having major LCD issues on my laptop today. I have one of these no name brand (actually called Prostar) laptop that I bought a few years back. It's served me well and only giving problems here and there occassionally. Well, this one takes the trophy.

The screen is flickering light to dark background...I can still see as I'm typing this. It's just going into a darker contrast and back to normal. Then it will go completely black on me. Sometimes it comes back...when it doesn't, I close the lid and open it back up again. Again, sometimes this works, other times I have to shut and open the lid several times before it opens back up. The strange thing I noticed when it turns all black is that there are times when I can actually see the images in the back (just too dark to look at it normally). But most of the times it's just plain black (blank screen).

Does anyone know what part is bad? I tried to take apart the darn thing myself and see if I can maybe reseat the LCD cable but this doesn't sound like it could be the issue.

Thanks.

hmmm... apparently from other posts your laptop is falling apart. I think it's time to replace your laptop. (I wish mine fell apart faster, I need a new one )

xboxrulz

Some laptops have a power connection built into the hinge. Don't know if this does, but if wiggling the monitor has the same effect as opening and closing, it could be a problem with the hinge. Try and see.

~Viz

I think your LCD is dying. I had this happen with a couple no-name brands, and once with a Dell.

also, if it isn't any switches, try connecting a external screen to your laptop to check its the graphics card that doing it!

just an idea!

This post has been edited by Jimmy89: Jan 14 2007, 12:20 PM

I agree with Vis..its prolly a trapped connection in the hinge..same thing happs to monitor cables trapped in between desks.normally you get a loss of colour in one band ..or it cuts the power off..the way to prove it would be to hook it up to a normal monitor and see if the same problems are occuring..
Good Luck..

Was hoping it was just an intermittent problem, but I tried again this morning. After a few minutes the screen started to go crazy again. I took the LCD apart (boy was that a nightmare) and did find a cable or two that ran into the middle of the hinge into the logic board (most likely). I wanted to open up the entire laptop and see how it was connected, but after I got the LCD part off, I was too frustrated to continue any further.

Is it worth the time to see if the LCD connector is ok? I will take the whole thing apart again if necessary. Otherwise, I was thinking of getting a replacement part (if it's not the entire LCD that's bad). I read up online about this and see people mentioning about some kind of bulb and LCD inverter. Would there be any chance that it could be the same thing here?

I have wanted to get a new laptop for a while now but kept saying I won't do so until this ancient beast dies out on me. Unfortunately, it went out on me at a bad time. Need to start saving up for a new laptop now

I can't believe this, but I resorted to using an old iMac G3 that I had in the closet to go online here. I will try using a monitor from my sister's desktop computer and see how that works out. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of screen issue at this point.

OK, I played around with it further today. I tested it with my regular CRT monitor and tried to turn off the LCD with the monitor toggle button on my keyboard...that didn't work. So I was working on two screens. The LCD turned itself off at times and flickered here and there, then turned back on. I just ignored it and worked using the CRT monitor. After a few hours I noticed that the LCD on my laptop is not flickering for the longest time. I unplugged the CRT monitor cable and have been working on the LCD itself for the past hour or so. Any ideas why this might be happening?

I was just about to go buy the LCD inverter first to see if that board might be bad.

I made sure it's not the hinge or anything so I adjusted the LCD in different angles when it was flickering, but that didn't seem to help.

It could be a problem with the Graphics Adapter. I had a board that had a bad graphics adapter and a similar problem. If that's the problem, maybe plugging in the CRT reset something, a short maybe, and it is now fixed. That is a best case scenario, however.

~Viz

If your CRT is working, that rule out the possibility if connection to the video section (some notebook has detachable "video card")

When your LCD is flickering or turning off, is it the backlight that's off or the whole screen?

If it's the LCD itself, then very likely is the connector from the LCD to the mother board, or sometime, it's connected through another small detachable board. That's the most common failing part. You can check it by taking out the keyboard or remove the cover above the keyboard, some model let you do that, so you can inspect the connection or do something else inside.

If it's the backlight, and it dim then turn off, it's not the connection anymore, very likely it's the onboard filtering capacitor. Are you still using the battery? I notice that the capacitor die faster if the battery is taken out, and operated on AC adapter for a longer period

I've repaired a few notebook, most of it due to capacitor problem. Replacing the capacitor will need to take out the whole board.

Good luck