I have a friends laptop, Dell Inspiron 1150, that will not display. At start up it all appears normal during boot up. Windows XP screen appears and sometimes gets as far as the desktop. However, suddenly the screen will go totally blank. The laptop continues to load and I am certain it's running except it is not being displayed. Would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you.

Does that happen in safemode too? What about the BIOS .... does the display timeout there as well?

Yes, to all your questions. It will not at any time continue to display anything. I even attempted to format and reinstall the O/S and it went blank.

Sounds like the backlight is at the end of its life. You're not the first one to ask us about this particular model. Dell Inspiron 1150 display dead?? i_Xp/VistaUser

Interesting. I read the "Dell Inspiron 1150 Display Dead" string and am curious as to where this CRT/LCD button is located. I don't have the luxury of the operators manual. I would like to at least try this. Thanks

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx... This may be a challenge for you. Don't try to be a hero to your friend as you could easily lose this friendship if something goes wrong and you cannot fix it. If you never have repaired laptops, encourage your friend to take it to a Dell authiorized service center for competent service. i_Xp/VistaUser

Okay, thanks for the input. I did find the CRT/LCD "key" and that worked for about as long as the laptop monitor did. So, as I understand it the 1150 does not have a video card, rather in BIOS on the main board. Correct me if I'm wrong. I have had a few laptops apart and don't really relish the idea.