laptop black screen; monitor works

[seandarcy]

Booting my toshiba laptop, lcd is completely black. No bios, no light, nothing.

I can connect to an external monitor, and that works. It boots. The machine works, but the lcd is black.

Any thoughts?

[JorgeM]

Has the laptop had any recent damage, falling, etc? There is generally a ribbon cable inside that plugs into the LCD display. I've seen them get loose over time, and damage due to crimping.

[rubberman]

What JorgeM said, although it can also be a simple matter of the LCD backlight being defective. If it is the backlight, sometimes you can see very dim images if you look at the display from an oblique angle with a light shining on it (sometimes better if the light is shining from the side).

[seandarcy]

No dim images. Just black.

And I've ealized the touchpad doesn't work. The cursor doesn't respond to the touchpad.

This is a dual boot machine. No error messages from either W7 or linux. Odd.

JorgeM: Where's the ribbon cable? Can a klutz access it?

[mjdodd]

The ribbon cable is under the keyboard! Have to remove keyboard gently and check cable. With the external monitor have you checked the boot log and event logs as these may give indication as to where the fault lies?
Bol m

[JorgeM]

Yeah, i would just be very carefull opening up the laptop. I've done it back in the day a few times. On one occassion, I was lucky as it was just loose at the connector for some reason. On another occassion, I needed to order a new ribbon cable.

Keep in mind that the cable is just one possibility. Sounds like there may be other issues going on now that you mention that the touchpad isnt working either.