How to troubleshoot and fix video problems

Here are some tips and tricks for troubleshooting and fixing laptop video problems. Video issues are very common within portable computers and with the following tips you should be able to detect and eliminate basic laptop video problems.
Laptop LCD screen has a faint image.

Look at the LCD screen very closely and check if you can see a faint image on the screen. It’s possible that the LCD lid close switch stuck in the “closed” position and the backlight stays off even when you open the LCD screen or turn on the laptop. The switch turns off the backlight when you close the LCD display to save the laptop battery power. Check the LCD lid close switch. Usually it is a small plastic pin located close to the LCD hinges. Try to tap on the switch a few times to turn on the backlight. If after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight stays on, you fixed the problem.
It is also possible that after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight works fine, you see a normal video on the screen for some time and then the backlight turns itself off again. In this case I would blame the FL inverter board. Try to reseat cables on both end of the FL inverter to make a better contact between the cables and the FL inverter board. If it doesn’t help I would try to replace the FL inverter board.

Laptop LCD screen is solid white color.

Most likely it is just a bad connection between the LCD display and the system board. I would try reseating the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen first and check if it fixes the problem. After that I would try reseating the video cable connector on the system board. I would also try reseating cables if there is no video on the LCD screen at all.
The video on the LCD screen is garbled.

Try to connect the LCD screen to an external monitor. If the external video is fine, you have a problem with the LCD screen or the LCD video cable. You can try to fix the problem by reseating the video cable on the back of the LCD and on the system board.
If you see the same garbled video output on the external monitor most likely it is not the LCD screen problem. In this case the system board (with onboard video) is bad or the video card is bad.
I understand that these tips will not cover all video problems with portable computers. If you have a different problem, you are welcome to leave a comment and I will try to help you if I can.
Here’s a notebook display assembly diagram.
Related articles:
Fixing notebook LCD screen with water damage.
Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
Laptop screen shows strange colors. What could be wrong?

How to connect 2.5 IDE hard drive to PC

To connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer you have to use a Laptop IDE Hard Drive Adapter. You can easily find this adapter on the Internet for $10-$15. This adapter is very handy if you want to scan a laptop hard drive for viruses and spyware using antivirus software installed on a desktop PC, transfer data from a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer or create a ghost image from one hard drive to another. I also use this adapter if a laptop hard drive has failed and I have to recover data from it.
When you connect a laptop IDE adapter, a desktop IDE cable and a laptop hard drive to each other, make sure to connect pin 1 on the hard drive, pin 1 on the desktop IDE cable to pin 1 on the adapter. On a desktop IDE cable the side painted in red goes to pin 1.

On a laptop hard drive there are 2 groups of pins. One group has 43 pins and the other has 4 pins. The pin 1 is located on the side closer to the group of 4 pins.

After you’ve assembled everything together, connect the IDE cable to a desktop PC. Connect it to a free IDE connector on the system board. When you start the computer, you should see the laptop drive in BIOS and in Windows. You can treat this drive as a regular hard drive.

 
In the next post I explain how to access data using an external USB enclosure.

How to remove BIOS password from Toshiba

You can use this plug to remove or clear the BIOS password from older Toshiba laptops. I tested the plug and it successfully cleared the BIOS password from Toshiba Satellite 1415, Satellite 1800 and Satellite Pro 6100. Using the plug you should be able to remove a BIOS password from most Pentium III Toshiba laptops and from some Pentium IV laptops. To make a password removal tool you need a DB25 plug from a parallel printer cable (cable with a plug that you can take apart), a solder gun and 30-40 minutes of your time.

Cut a DB25 connector off an old parallel printer cable and remove screws to disassemble the plug. The wires should be long enough to strip the ends and solder them.
 
All pins on the connector are marked from 1 to 25 and you should connect and solder together the wires from the following pins:



1+5+10
2+11
3+17
4+12
6+16
7+13
8+14
9+15



 
 
On some connectors pins 18 through 25 are already connected. If they are not connected, connect them. Do not connect a wire from pins 18-25 and a ground wire to anything, just insulate it with electrical tape and leave alone.

Carefully fold the wires, put wires inside the DB25 connector and assemble the connector.

 
How to use the Toshiba BIOS password removal tool: connect the plug to the parallel port on your Toshiba laptop and turn on the laptop. You should bypass the BIOS password and the laptop will boot directly to the operating system.
You can find and purchase the BIOS removal plug on eBay. Before you buy, make sure it works with your Toshiba laptop.
UPDATE for all Toshiba owners:
Some newer Toshiba laptops can start asking for the BIOS password even if the password has never been set. This affects the following models: Satellite A100, A105, A130, A135, A200, A205, L35, M200, M205, P100, P105, P200, P205 and probably some other models.
Before you can use the laptop, the BIOS password has to be cleared.