[chueh]

This past 2 weeks, my laptop Inspiron E1405 had flickered sometimes by itself. Last night, it turned totally black when I opened the lid. It never came back normal now.

I have tried the diagnosis on Dell website, following all the steps. When I ran the diagnostics, I saw very dim lines of colors across the screen. Nothing helped. I could not find any helps on the website either. No monitor troubleshooting has been written in the online manual.

I am using an external monitor now. Can anyone help me try anything to see the screen will be working normally again? Thanks

[QuiescentWonder]

The backlight isn't working. It means that either the backlight is burnt out or the backlight inverter is broken. The inverter is easy to replace and fairly cheap, the backlight itself is in the LCD and is definitely not something you should attempt unless you are very good with small tightly packed parts, short wires, and soldering. Also, the backlights are very very fragile. It's easier to just replace the entire LCD if the backlight is burnt out unless you can find someone to replace it at a decent price.

[chueh]

Thank you for your reply. Since I could not find the manual about the monitor, I don't know how to take the LCD apart from the laptop. Do you think that it's easy to take it apart? Thanks

[QuiescentWonder]

You need to find a service manual for your laptop model, not the screen itself. The laptop's manual will have information about taking the screen apart. Dell's laptops are usually fairly easy to take apart and only use a couple of different size screws. If you aren't careful you could cause more damage, also, it wouldn't be easy to tell which part is broken just by a visual inspection. You can take a chance and just buy an inverter for your model and hope that's the problem, or replace the entire LCD. I would try to find a repair shop that will look at it for free before you have any work done.

[chueh]

will do. Thanks much