Computer geeks, I need some help.

[OptimisticPessimist]

So, I have a 3-year-old Toshiba laptop that's giving me some trouble. I can turn it on, but the screen stays black most of the time. The screen activated once, but froze almost immediately. I've turned it on and off several times with the same results. Now, I'm not particularly computer-savvy so I haven't done anything else for fear of doing any more damage. I'll answer what questions about the machine that I can. Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated.

 

[Mekado]

It might be the soldering on the cable going from the bottom part to the top part that's giving up, which would explain why sometimes it works (and freezes when the cable gets displaced again).

If that's the case it's not really fixable by yourself, a Toshiba service center would be able to help you.

Easy way to test this would be to run your laptop on an external monitor for a while, if it works fine you really need to get it re-soldered.

 

[Rastien]

Heres the deal, unfortuntley laptops are a pain in the ass to fix hardware issues (which this sounds likely to be), desktop nps shits like lego.

You got a few options, imo a homebrew fix is out of the question really...

Take it to a local shop not a big brand store as they will tell you go back to the manufacturer.

Even if you take it to a small local shop they may still be able to do nothing with it but hold onto it for a week or so then tell you take it back to the manufacturer.

Contact the manufacturer (might still be under warrenty?) find out how much its gonna cost to send it to them to get repaired.

Weigh up the cost cut your losses and get a new laptop.

The post here sucks balls but is pretty much the long and the short of it.

(as previous guy suggested try it with another monitor but from your post you still may not be able to fix it yourself)