My laptop turns on black screen

Hey there guys and welcome to another one of my: Do it Yourself fixes where I look at common PC issue and teach you how to solve the problem in simple and easy to follow steps. One such problem is your Laptop turns on black screen then nothing and your device is rendered almost useless.

So lets looks at the issue and possible solutions to the problem to have your beloved laptop up and running again:

My laptop turns on black screen

Problem:  laptop turns on black screen

Symptoms: The symptoms of this problem may include the device display shows a black screen and the internal fans are still running. The power led and hard drive activity led may or may not flash as the device seems to be powered on but nothing on the display.

Causes: There are two (2) possible causes of this problem and slight variations could mean that its one or the other causing the laptop to turn on to a black screen:

1. A faulty stick of RAM is preventing the laptop from booting successfully, it tries to boot but fails but instead of a outright failure it  manages to boot to a black screen.

2. The second cause which is more unlikely may be caused by the LED back light of the display going out due to a faulty or a dead inverter that powers the monitor.

Solution:

Case 1: Faulty RAM

In case one (1) which is usually the culprit you will have to find and replace the faulty RAM stick. I have seen this issue with desktops and Laptops although it quite often happens more in laptops.

Luckily most modern Laptops have at least two (2) sticks of RAM and chances are only one is faulty and the laptop can run on one just fine until the replacement arrives or you could borrow a stick from another device to use for testing.

You are going to want to open the back panel and access the RAM this should be easy and accessible by a easy to remove back panel.Simply remove the panel and remove both stick of RAM clean the slots with compressed air or by blowing into the slots (Dust May cause RAM to stop working).

Clean the ram sticks and put back only one stick in Slot 1 or A and try booting, do the same with the second stick of RAM until you find the one that is causing the device not to boot. Once you have found it simply close up the laptop with the functional stick. You should now be good to go, you may purchase a replacement stick of RAM later.

Case 2. Damaged Inverter

To figure out if the monitors inverter is out or faulty, when the device powers up to the black screen carefully tilt and look on the screen very carefully to see if you can see any windows icons that are slightly visible, you can also use the aid of a flash light. If you hear windows boot and you can see slight menus and windows elements faintly in the background the inverter is blown.

In this case you will have to open the screen of the laptop and remove the faulty inverter, then match its make and model and order a new one and replace the damaged inverter. They are relatively cheap and not too difficult to replace.

I hope that this tutorial has helped you in fixing the Issue of your laptop turning on to a black screen today. If your problem is slightly different or you have a question feel free to use the comments and I will get back to you as soon as possible.