I have a laptop that when you press the power button, all the lights turn on, but nothing shows up on the screen. First time this occurred was after a blue screen came up. I tried reseating the RAM in different variations but it does not appear to be the RAM. I tried turning it on just using the battery, using both battery and AC, and just using AC. I noticed that the middle fan does not work. I disconnected it from the MOBO thinking that perhaps this hardware failure of the fan could prevent the laptop to boot up. The hard drive still spins fine and putting in a disc has the CD drive spin but nothing shows up on the screen despite lights from the keyboard. I will try attaching an external monitor. Any idea what it means if it works? If it doesn't work? I saw a lot of posting claiming to be the graphic card. How much and difficult is this to replace myself? I saw some posting claiming it could be the actual screen/backlight. How difficult and much is this to replace myself? Thanks for all your help

Nothing shows up from start to finish? I have heard and experienced an issue with my zd8080 having to do with the drivers that are installed. the HP OEM drivers never gave me problems but any other driver used would cause my screen to go black or white fade into black. I am sure though that the screen was visible until the PC started into windows. Another possibility is my ZD tended to heat up easily if not cleaned out regularly (so much so to the point that I would push the power button and it would turn off after seconds of booting). Make sure you keep all of the dust balls out of the notebook as those fans are easily obstructed. As the middle fan does not work this could have caused the notebook to heat up excessively and something may have burned out. Even with all three of my fans running in a clean environment my notebook would get so hot it would burn to touch it >.<.

Thanks for your reply ToolPunk. I tried connecting the laptop to an external monitor and still nothing shows up on the screen whatsoever. Not even the Windows logo. It seems like maybe it is the graphics card or something and therefore it cannot be fixed. Now if only I can find a way to recover the data ...