So now that the GPU and Inverter Board has been ruled out as causes, it is probably the backlight. This (I hope) rules out a damaged hinge cable. I have also (at risk of losing my backlight) closed and opened my lid 3 times, and the backlight still works fine. This probably rules out the GPU being dead as a cause of my problem. I then tested my VGI port and it still works. I've managed to restart the laptop after running it hot and got the backlight to work (therefore the inverter board is not burnt out), and retested the HDMI port still dead (but probably unrelated to my current problem). I can confirm that there is indeed a faint image on the screen I can use the laptop (albiet inconveniently) if I shine a light at the screen. Just for the record, if it is actually the backlight then you should see a very very faint image on the screen. You should probably look into either getting a new LCD or a new laptop depending on the cost of the LCD. I have been supporting laptops for many years and can tell you the 2 biggest support issues with them is the backlight and keyboards/trackpoint going out on them. The backlight has nothing to do with your GPU and they simply go out over time. I've read that this problem is consistent with a cracked soldering problem with Nvidia GPUs on laptops, and therefore I checked to see if I could utilize my HDMI port on a desktop monitor, and I got a No Signal reading from the monitor.Ĭan anyone confirm if it is indeed a soldering issue, and if so, how would be the best way to fix it? I have also noticed that, after leaving my laptop on for a while, and then restarting it (while it is still hot), I have a chance of getting the backlight to work consistently, or until the computer sleeps the screen or I close the lid. As such, I have pretty much ruled out a bad backlight and burnt out inverter board as those would not generate any split second backlight flash in any of these scenarios. Additionally, closing the laptop lid and opening it once more generates a backlight flash, but then the screen goes completely dim. The backlight flashes once more when the computer enters the login screen, and again once more once I'm logged in. Just recently I have noticed that when I turn on my computer, the backlight flickers for maybe half a second (illuminating the Dell startup screen), and then goes completely dim. I have a Dell XPS M1530 with an NVidia 8200GT GPU that I have been using for about 4 1/2 years.

Dell laptop backlight not working