laptop LCD adventure

[neylitalo]

A few months ago, the screen on my laptop stopped working. (I suspect the fluorescent light at the bottom of the screen; the inverter board is good.) So I had to hook it up to an external LCD, and to make my laptop not try to use the built-in LCD, I wedged a dime between the display and the switch that shuts off the LCD when you close the lid. I'd just shut the lid, but I still needed access to the power button.

 

But for some reason, the switch stopped working today, so it was always trying to use the laptop display instead of the external output. After determining that there was no way I could use the switch to disable the LCD, I racked my brain to think of a way that I could remedy the situation.

 

The fix? As it turns out, these things are pretty easy to take apart. The bottom half of the laptop (the keyboard, etc., everything that matters) is sitting on my desk, and the display is sitting in a box.

 

On a similar note, if you have a working 14.1" LCD panel for an Inspiron 600m that you could sell, send me a PM. They run $70 on ebay, and I can't quite afford that.

[freakus_maximus]

Most laptops have a key switch combination to to toggle between 1. Main Display 2. External Display 3. Both Displays (some).

 

On my dell latitude it's a blue "Fn" key that press and the F8 key. The F8 key has blue writing on it that say "CRT/LCD".

 

Certainly does not resolve having to open the lid to power on.

 

Anyways, good luck on finding the display replacement.

[neylitalo]

Yes, my laptop has that feature, but it didn't fix the problem. The wedged dime was a last-ditch effort to solve the problem, after all other solutions had been whittled away.