After happily using my Dell Studio 1458 for a little bit over a year, all of a sudden my laptop screen was completely blank (not black, but a sort of grey blank) when I started it up yesterday. I reset it a few times, I let it run and I heard the standard Windows startup sounds. From that I surmised the laptop was still working fine, and I connected an external monitor. I'm now using the laptop with this external monitor and everything except the laptop monitor is working fine.
I can still go to 'change screen resolution' and see the Mobile PC Display being correctly detected by Windows. I can turn it on by choosing 'Extend these displays'. I can also change the screen resolution on the Mobile PC Display. It is the same kind of grey blank whatever I do. From all this I conclude there's nothing wrong with the drivers: the most likely culprit seems to be the connection between the laptop and the Mobile PC Display. Unfortunately I ran out of warranty three weeks ago, so I don't know what my options are here. I started taking apart the laptop to see if I could maybe plug in a loose cable once more, but I got cold feet about half way when I remembered I had not properly backed up all my files.
Any ideas on how I should proceed?
Thanks,
Johannes