No display on Dell 5100

[kushtibari]

Mate brought his Dell 5100 round because the display suddenly died (don't know why he brought it as I've never done anything with laptops). It appears to boot up fine but there is no display at all - not even a BIOS screen. I connected it up to a spare monitor via separate VGA out - booted up and it was perfect on the 'external' monitor. Its got an onboard 7500 graphics which is obviously working fine and shows two displays. When I tried to set it on dual display it had no effect. Can a laptop display just die like that, or is there an 'easy' solution?

[streetster]

he's not just hit the button combo (like Fn+f4 or similar) to switch between the internal LCD and an external monitor has he?

[nichomach]

Short answer is yes, it can just die like that; obviously, check the display switch as streetster notes, but we've just had one die, very similarly - external's OK, internal LCD's just a blank white screen.

[Jonny M]

Can you see a feint image of what's happening on the screen? This may indicate a backlight failure.

[Jiff Lemon]

Other thing to check is the little switch that gets pressed when the lid is shut - I've had these stick in, making the Laptop think the lid is permanently shut, so switching the LCD off.

[kushtibari]

Originally Posted by Jiff Lemon

Other thing to check is the little switch that gets pressed when the lid is shut - I've had these stick in, making the Laptop think the lid is permanently shut, so switching the LCD off.

I'll try that. I tried all the other options yesterday and got no joy. It is just totally blank like there's no power coming through.

Edit: Good idea, but no joy with the lid catch.