Toshiba Satellite, half my lcd is blank?

[samuraiwarrior]

Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a Toshiba Satellite M105-S3084 laptop on craigslist for $120 bucks. Its a decent laptop, 2gb DDR2 ram 1.6 core duo processor, I would love to keep it but heres the issue. There is a green line running vertically towards the right end of the lcd. Now, the entire left side of this green line is completly functional but the right hand of the green line is blank. Ive researched laptop issues and I wish i couldve concluded that its the lcd needing to be replaced, BUT in my research I read the vga monitor output should display fine. I cant get a signal on my vga output no matter what ive tried( different drivers, bios versions, different os's, xp, vista, windows 7, ubuntu). The S-video output displays but the vga monitor output is a no go. A new lcd would only cost me $80, and there in i wouldve only spent $200. Ive as of now decided to sell it on ebay(I do have the option to cancel the auction within 12 hours from now), hoping to receive $250 at least , and then i can purchase a newer laptop (with a little extra cash)Heres a photo of my laptops lcd http://i45.tinypic.com/mhtuld.jpg.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Did it detect your external vga monitor at all?

 

[orihS ‪‪‪Shiro]

Take apart Toshiba Satellite M105 notebook

Have you tried reseating the flex cable?
I've heard that may solve the issue?
(Instructions on how to do that are in the above link.)

 

[samuraiwarrior]

Thanks for your input guys,

Yes, at one point when i was running Vista, I kept the device manager up and when i would switch over to the monitor it would be detected for a second, but appeared with the yellow explamation point, meaning the it was unable to install the monitor. Another notable point is that I can see the monitor in the windows manager for extending the monitor to multiple displays, but its viewed as a non plug and play monitor(which is odd). When i was able to see the monitor in the device manager with the driver error, that was only visible for few seconds because the device manager would refresh as soon as the signal didnt go through on the monitor.

What puzzles me is the the svideo output would display fine, but not the vga output. They all run on the same video board, so the only thing that sort of comes to mind here is that the video card could be failing. Im reluctant to accept that, being the laptops lcds (at the least the left visible portion of it) displays completely normal. Sometimes the blank portion of the screen shows a duplicate picture of the left half, it is garbled, but i can actually open the start menu and see the same picture over to the far right. http://i45.tinypic.com/24oxdao.jpg

I did visually inspect the ribbon cable behind the lcd, while i was doing a little cleaning, but i could go ahead and completly disconnect and reseat it. Or go all the way into the main video board and check connections there.
I am just about ready to go out on a limb here and just purchase the new lcd, install it, and see what happens...

 

[samuraiwarrior]

Haven't gotten around to disassembling the laptop to check the main connectors and all the cables just yet. Also I have not purchased a new lcd, and am not going to until Ive explored all possibilities. Any other input on possible causes would be appreciated, thank you.