Barely visible LCD screens

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I have run into this problem before with LCD's. The screen is almost completely black with a very miniscule amount of light visible to see your desktop.

The laptop is a Dell Inspirion 1520

In the past I have started with testing with a spare inverter, updating the video drivers and testing with a new LCD. However for the laptop I currently have in I have done all of this and the problem still persists.

Tried 3 different inverter boards, the original board stays black through Windows XP loading screen, the other two are normal for Windows loading, however go black once the desktop loads.

Tried a brand new LCD, problem went away.. I walked away from the laptop to do something else, came back and the screen was black again.

The screen is perfectly fine in safe mode.

The drivers were completely removed (manually removed driver files from system32, and system32/drivers) then installed the latest version (1/3/10)

The screen does work on an external monitor, so as far as infections causing this I am not too sure that's even an issue (scanned with Malwarebytes anyway, came up empty)

In my head, I keep blaming hardware. But I figure I'd get a second opinion. The only thing I have not changed is the video cable for I do not have a spare.

Anyone got any additional ideas?
 
Weirdly enough when I did hit FN F8 to originally test to see if an external monitor worked, the screen would turn on normally for a second and then turn back off and switch to the external display.

The LCD seems to be working at the current moment, perhaps a wire was just loose I unconnected and reconnected everything with the new LCD + inverter.

Going to run updates and see if it behaves for now,

Thanks though
 
I had something kind of similar recently. The usual suspects all tested OK, but couldn't get the screen to stay lit more than a few seconds.

Turned out to be a defective lid switch/sensor. The laptop kept trying to go into "lid closed" mode.
 
Normally when I hear that the screen is really dark and you can faintly see the items on the screen, I first think - Backlight. But you are saying that it works in safe mode. Makes me wonder more.

Now I'm assuming that when you changed out the screen, the new screen had a new backlight already in it.

So maybe you need to test the connection to the Backlight?
 
Who is your inverter supplier? Is it sold on eBay as new?
Compare the new one with old one, is it exactly the same?
Try a USED inverter that came out of a broken machine and let me know.
 
Sounds like some kind of power management issue to me.. seeing as the back light works in safe mode.

I suppose it could be the lid switch, but then you would also expect the LCD to go blank as well (Not visible at all).
 
So we ended up replacing the screen and inverter which seemed to fix the issue. The customer picked up the laptop and called today saying her screen was black when she turned it on again.

As a general rule of thumb I typically always leave laptops plugged in while working on them, scans take time and drain your battery. Unfortunately I had never tested the screen ON battery.

As soon as she brought it back I again plugged it in and it came on fine, sat there for a few minutes, scratched my head and unplugged it. The screen dimmed instantly. Plugged it back in, the screen came back on. Very strange, never seen that before. Especially since the battery doesn't die right afterwards, you can hook it up to an external display and the laptop is seemingly fine running off battery power.

Oddly enough, when we tried testing her old screen after finding this out, the old LCD still didn't work. Something was definitely wrong with the old one, just turns out that multiple forces are working against me today.

Thanks for the tips, btw whomever mentioned that I should check the little button the laptop hits to dim the light when it closes I thank you for making me go somewhat crazy. This laptop does not have one, instead it has a magnet on the top-inside part of the plastic which when its hits a spot on the palm rest the screen turns off. Learn something new everyday.


Edit: should also mention that the FN+brightness buttons do nothing when it is on battery
 
Last edited:
I know a.o. Dell Studio laptops have different brightness settings when operating on battery and when plugged in. If you dim the lcd when on battery and plug it in, the the screen brightness will change. And vica versa ofcourse.
Are you saying this was the issue on the laptop you worked on?


Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
 
PC Ops said:
I know a.o. Dell Studio laptops have different brightness settings when operating on battery and when plugged in. If you dim the lcd when on battery and plug it in, the the screen brightness will change. And vica versa ofcourse.
Are you saying this was the issue on the laptop you worked on?


Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

No the brightness button effects nothing the battery is unplugged. The back light just turns off. I did check the BIOS earlier and both on battery and plugged in brightness settings are at max.
 
I would hazard a guess that there is something in the circuitry that has failed. Otherwise you may want to try a different battery. Those multiple contacts on the battery supply power to different components/sections, perhaps the battery or charging circuit has failed?

Just guessing.
 
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