Help! My Toshiba screen is black but the fan is running?!!

[Jess99x]

So this morning I tried to turn on my computer and it did but the screen is pitch black. The fan is running and it is charging. When I press caps lock and num lock the lights don't turn on. I've had this laptop for about 1 or 2 years. I tried taking out the battery and everything... Nothing seems to work!

[Begginnerdev]

There could be a number of problems wrong, but first I would start small.

The easiest test to do would be to plug the laptop into a desktop monitor using the VGA port.
If this works, it could mean any of these:

Bad LCD (Replace LCD)
Bad Inverter (Replace Inverter)
Bad Inverter Cable (Replace Cable)
Bad Onboard GPU (Replace Motherboard)

If this doesn't work, it still wont rule out a bad GPU.

It could also mean that you have bad memory, which can be accessed through a small port on the bottom of the laptop. (Typically one screw that can be removed on a 3"x3" panel)

You can test the memory by removing the sticks one and a time, and booting the pc (Swapping the first with the last...ect...)

If this does not work, you will have to take the laptop for a service shop ( or some one who knows a great deal about hardware) to get them to look at it for you.

[Andrew54]

If anyone else has the black screen, white pointer, nothing works BUT black screen and white pointer, in any boot mode, u probably need a hard drive. You CAN get your restore disks to work though! If you cant access the options on the recovery disc, use an ubuntu live disk(free just make one, had one layin around), choose the install option. It formatted the drive and when it was done i rebooted with my recovery disk in and i can finally access all the(or any for that matter) options on the disk. Hope this helps? oh yeah toshiba sattelite 200gb hitachi drive