I have Dell Inspirion 1545 without backlight. Laptop works fine on external monitor. Screen is ok because I've tried it in other laptop and it worked fine. I've replaced inverter and LCD cable and still no successes. Any suggestions?
Could be that the cable from MB to Screen has a problem! Did you open that machine and unconnected any cables etc.? You wrote that the Backlight is gone. Could you see any picture on the screen at all or is the screen totally black?
Can only think that it's either the cables, or the board that powers the inverter in the first place, got a multimeter you can test the input cables to the inverter to make sure it's getting power?
This seems to happen every time I diagnose a CCFL backlit screen now. The problem is it could be any of those parts. Most likely it isn't the inverter and my best guess would be either the video cable you got is bad or the screen needs to be replaced anyways. You need to test with a new screen or a used one that you know for a fact works fine.
1545 was common for mobo to get blown component to the power out for backlight. (a circuit repair friend of mine told me this yrs ago) however try bios recovery or test 1 ram stick at time.
Just received a Dell 1525 with the same problem....tested the inverter with another spare CFL lamp that I keep on hand for testing and it works fine, that 1525 has a bad CFL lamp. Replacing this lamp (about $15.) is a major PIA and this older Dell is not worth the time and trouble to fix. Starts out o.k. for about 10 - 15 minutes then it starts flickering, gets lighter/darker and then no light at all
I don't replace CCFL lamps anymore. It's too much hassle and even if you do it correctly, you still break light seals in the process and some light will inevitably bleed. Screens are cheap enough to replace anyways without all the labor of replacing a lamp.
I used a different CFL bulb to test it with, so I had to connect an external monitor so I could see windows