I have in my possession a laptop that shows the StartUp screen for about a second and then goes blank. Windows continues to boot normally and an accessory monitor works fine via the VGA port.

Attached to an identical laptop (another Inspiron 1525) the same thing happens.

So I guess it must be either something intrinsic to the display unit or the inverter.

The second laptop had a cracked LCD but otherwise working fine so I will eventually get round to swapping just the screen over but I'm busy these times and the LCD/Inverter seem very bonded together and not so easy to disassemble.


Does anyone know if a failing inverter could produce this effect; a perfect display for about 1 second?

The inverter was fine.
The LCD and its daughterboard were fine.
The cables were fine.

It was just the backlight. Finicky to replace but two useless LCD screens have become one good one!

Don't know why it would light-up and then go out - perhaps a bad bit of solder somewhere but worth knowing for the future.