Are Laptop LCDs generic?

I'm working on a laptop with a big ol crack across the screen, and as you might expect, nothing appears on the monitor. I'm unable to get any signal to a monitor when I plug one in to its' VGA port, though I've encountered a handful of laptops that refuse to do that outside of windows regardless.

I've tested the hard drive and the memory on another computer and both work fine. The trouble is that without getting something to look at, it's very hard to test other key things like the CPU or Mobo. Since the owner knew nothing about the cause of the crack, I'm worried whatever impact it received could have damaged other parts and won't be able to find out for sure without spending $100+ on a new LCD screen.

This all leads me to two questions. One is software related and the other is hardware, so from here out I'm dividing my questions to two threads in respective forums (which I think is the *appropriate* thing to do, though apologies if not).

Hardware:
The laptop has a 15.4 LCD display. How generic are the LCD screens? Are there any other manufacturers that use the same LCD screens as Gateway uses? This specific laptop is Gateway MT6840, though, I'd like to know general things to watch for for the future too.

 

There will almost certainly be other makers that use the same screens, open it up and start Googling the labels and scanning Ebay

 

I don't think "generic" is the proper term since generic generally means it can be substituted into any application.

But certainly, "OEM" applies here - where a LCD maker sells a 15.4" (say, model # 154-GW) panel to Gateway who then puts their brand on it. And even though they may sell the same panel to ASUS (but with model # 154-AS), that does not mean it will fit (physically or electrically) correctly into a 15.4" NEC notebook who might buy their panels from somewhere else. There are certainly more notebook makers than there are LCD panel makers, so this happens a lot.

Understand that Gateway bought eMachine, and Acer bought Gateway so there is a good chance all three makers use the same panels on various models.

 

There is a keyboard key combination that switches the output of windows, from the LCD monitor to an external monitor. Have you tried that?
Not being there, I cannot tell you exactly what those keys are.
Sorry!

EDIT: on both my Acer Netbook and my ten year old Toshiba laptop, the key combinatiion is the Fn key at the bottom of the keyboard and the F5 key at the top of the keyboard. Press and hold the Fn key while pressing the F5 key, to shift the output to the external monitor. Of course, you need the external monitor plugged in and turned on, to even try this. Good Luck!

Shadow

 

Thanks for the info guys, that answers my question perfectly!

And yes, unfortunately I have tried the output switching Fn keys and the display on/off with no luck.

 

Aaarrrrgggghhh! It looks, at first light, that the damage may go deeper than just the display, otherwise the "swap display" thing should have worked.
I would try to get into the BIOS screen on boot and then try the swap.
But it sure sounds like the video output itself may be toast.

I was given a little Toshiba laptop with a similar condition but including a bad main battery. I salvaged the hard drive and ram and gave the carcass away to a PC Guru friend of mine.

Good Luck,
:cool