compaq presario screen help

[thunderbird]

Hope someone can help me. I was given a compaq presario 1220 running win95. It used to work fine but now when you boot up the screen stays black. I connected an external monitor and that works fine. Is the screen shot or is it a simple fix(not too costly)?Thanks in advance!

[query]

Is the screen totally black, or can you (in bright light) make out a faint image?

If it's completely black, the video circuity is probably shot - you'll need a new mainboard.

If it's just black, with a faint image, chances are the backlight bulb and/or inverter (bulb power supply) is shot - those are about $50-75 worth of parts, plus another $100-150 for labor to replace - if there are replacements available (sometimes replacing these means replacing the entire screen, which is significantly more expensive).

[Chandler]

If you look very closely, can you see very faint patterns on the screen?  If so, then the backlight has probably died.  These can be replaced.

[thunderbird]

upon closer examination, the screen is actually blue. At boot up it appears as though the light comes on but the screen remains blank. is it the screen that is shot then? like i said before, it works fine with an external monitor attached. Any more info would be great.

[Chandler]

Just a thought, is it actually set to output to the LCD?  Try the hotkey which cycles between LCD/VGA/TV

[thunderbird]

This may be a stupid question, but how do you cycle using the hot key? is it F2? or usin Fn, Ctrl, or Alt? If so then I don't think that solves it. As stated in my first post, the laptop was given to me. They thought it was broken so I said I would take it and maybe get it to work. I have never used a laptop before. Thanks.

[query]

The most common is the function key plus one of the number keys (which should be marked).

It sounds like your LCD inverter and/or bulb is shot.