I have a inspiron 8500, when I boot it up I see the Windows XP boot
screen, then it goes black. It works with an external monitor, but the
LCD is not on. I have uninstaled my display driver, Radeon Mobility
9000. When the display driver is uninstalled, the laptop screen works,
I reinstalled the display driver and it goes black again, only working
with an external monitor. How do I switch the laptop from laptop screen
to external monitor and the other way around, anyone know how I can fix
this? any help is appreciated!

"overjoyed" <overjoyed@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1115940216.107061.167960@g14g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
There should be a button on the keyboard, usually with a bad diagram of a
monitor on it, along with something like an "FN" button, that allows you to
switch between the LCD, External, and Both. Once in a while video drivers
get a little flakey, and you have to use this to get your screen back.

There might be something in BIOS as well.

Your user manual should describe this. If you lost yours, download one from
Dell's web site.

Pagan

Backlight or inverter is probably dropping out.. Common on all brands
for failure..

Jay, you rock! I just had a client walk in with the exact sam
problem, exact same model. He'd taken it to one of our competitor
who did everything under the sun (except, apparently, using Googl
:wink: ) including calling Dell, and came up empty. I found you
posting and got him taken care of in less than 5 minutes

Mahalo, my friend!

Joh

I have same problem as marclandau above.

Im on a Dell Inspiron 1100, and I can enter Standby mode, but when
try to reboot, my screen stays black when I return. I then have t
shut down by holding down the on/off key and reboot

Slightly different issue than other ones above, but any ideas

Han and Juju

Glad it worked out for you guys. Keep on truckin'

-Ja

Hello
I have a similar problem with my Dell Inspiron 2500. I replaced th
CCFL tube (the small flourescent tube that lights up the LCD display
and the screen worked fine for a few days. THEN just after a coupl
of days, after going into hibernation, the CCFL doesn't turn back on
When I restart the tube lights up, I see the Dell Insprin Screen an
then it goes black. So, I'm pretty convinced this is a softwar
issue. The only way I've found around this is to unplug the lapto
and wait for a full boot up before plugging the laptop back in. VER
bizare, eh
Any ideas on how to permamently solve this most annoyin
problem
Thanks and CHeers

Thanks everyone , I had the same problem on the wife's Dell 850
Inspiron. I did what JayRI said and got the 'puter working after
weeks of :crybaby:heartache