Laptop screen issue - with troubleshooting actions

tgmnut2

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Aug 3, 2011
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Hello all,

My girlfriends daughter has a Gateway NV53 laptop that is having screen issues. Here is what is happening and what I have done so far to troubleshoot:

When booting, the screen is at first white, then black - but not entirely black. It seems the backlight is working as there is light around the edges. Once on, here daughter was pushing the top left of the screen where the glass meets the plastic and sometimes it would work and sometimes not (I know I know, she shouldnt be pushing on the glass but she's 15...trust me, I've addressed it).

Ok, now I've hooked it up to an external monitor and it works fine - can load applications, etc etc.

Also, I removed the battery, disconnected the adapter and held in power button for a minute. No luck.

From what I have researched, I'm guessing its either the Inverter Unit or a loose connection, but before breaking it all down and trying to fix it, wanted to see if anyone on here has any other suggestions or if there is anything I might have overlooked.

I'm not a computer expert by any means, but was a tech project manager and do have the aptitude to fix things, so gonna try to repair this myself (as I'm laid off and she is a single mom, so money is very tight right now).

Thanks ion advance for any help, its greatly appreciated.

Patrick
 
Hello tgmnut2;

Good job troubleshooting.

I've known some experienced techs to pinch the screen bezel and prod the screen (gently) and be able to get some diagnostic ideas of whats going on. But that's well beyond my level of skill.

A CCFL LCD will have a backlight tube power inverter. If it's the newer LED LCD - they don't need an inverter. And I'm thinking the NV53 has LED backlighting. Can you confirm that?

If you hold a lamp near the screen of shine a flashlight on it can you make out anything displayed on the screen?