No picture on screen

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21E laptop. I've had it about 16 months, so it's now out of warranty. Up until a few days ago it worked fine, then, whilst I was using it, the screen crashed. It wasn't a blue screen of death, more a mish-mash of random colours all over the screen. Nothing I could do got any response, so I powered down and tried to reboot. Now, when I turn it on, all the lights come on and I can hear/feel the hard drive whir into action, but nothing is displayed on the screen, it's completely black. I think it could possibly be a problem with the graphics card (Nvidia Geforce 8400M GT GPU)? Or maybe the LCD screen (15.4" WXGA 1280x800 X-Black LCD)?

I'm basically looking for any advice people have on what the problem could be? And are there any tests I could do myself to try to diagnose the problem? I'll probably end up taking the laptop somewhere to be repaired, but I'd like an idea of the possible causes in case they try overcharge me.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Try hooking it up to another monitor and see if you get a picture. If you do, most likely a problem with the laptop screen, if you still get nothing, I would suspect the video card.

Good luck!

 

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Don't have a monitor of my own, but should be able to get the laptop round to someone else's house (and monitor) tomorrow.