Laptop starts up, but screen stays black

Hi everyone,

I tried to start up my laptop this morning and it seemed to start up, but the screen won't turn on. It stays completely black-- yes, I have tried shining the flashlight on my phone onto the screen to see if the back light might have burned out, but nothing is there. I have experienced a backlight burnout on an old laptop in the past and this is not the same problem, at least I don't think it is. When it starts up, the fan sounds like it would when my laptop is working overtime and starting to heat up a bit. I don't know why this would happen when everything appeared fine last night.

I have done a recent malware removal through the forum's instructions not too long ago, and since things went smoothly, I don't think it's malware related. Does anyone know what I can do to at least try to fix this on my own? I don't currently have any funds to bring my laptop in for repairs or to even buy a new one. I

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5050, two years-old this September. It runs on Windows 7 Home, 64-bit, AMD Vision, Dual-core, 320 gb hard drive, 3 gb RAM. Don't what else about it since that's about what I can see from the stickers on it and from memory, but I can find out more if needed.

Please help if anyone knows what to do. I'd like to at least be able to save most of the files I have on my laptop. Thank you in advance.

 

The first thing to try is hooking an external monitor to the PC and starting it up. If you get video on the external monitor, it points to an issue with the built-in monitor. If there is no display on the external monitor, the culprit is likely the on-board video card.

If it's an issue with the on-board video (or possibly the CPU), there is about a 40% shot a professional repair shop can "reflow" the motherboard. If you go this route, be sure the shop gives you at least a 90 day warranty on the repair. At my shop, the bench fee of $40 is nonrefundable if unsuccessful; a successful repair is $125 (including the bench fee).

If a reflow doesn't work, your only options are to replace the motherboard or replace the PC. If the cost of a motherboard exceeds 50% of the cost of a new PC with comparable power and features, I'd scrap the old one and sell it for parts on eBay.

As for data recovery, pull the drive, put it in an external 2.5" USB drive enclosure (about $10-$15 at Newegg or Fry's) and hook it up to a working PC. You should be able to find your data (My Documents, My Music, etc.) in the "Users" directory on the drive.

Hope this helps.