[SOLUTION] Dell Latitude E5420 white screen
A client brought me a Dell Latitude E5420 that had just a white screen – no POST, nothing. If you hooked up a monitor, everything was perfectly fine.
I found some forums like this one that talk about the problems with this model:
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/148598-dell-latitude-e5420-high-failure-rate?page=1
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19411044/19965108.aspx#19965108
In spite of all of that, I brought it to a laptop repair expert and he quickly removed the monitor bezel, unscrewed the LCD screen mount screws, looked at the back of the LCD screen to find that the video cable was disconnected! He popped it back on and my client is back in business!
Here is a decent-looking guide to doing it yourself: http://www.insidemylaptop.com/replace-screen-on-dell-latitude-e5420-laptop/
I wouldn’t be surprised if this design flaw would make the video cable pop off of the motherboard or damage the cable so as to require replacement.
Please comment if this helps or if you can provide more help!
Guys. This is great. I have a similar issue. LCD is showing white blank screen when powered on.
I was on the verge of ordering a new LCD since system is out of warranty. I googled and thank God i found this post.
Am a Dell Pro-support engineer with a dell partner company in Nigeria.
Solution:
I removed the front Bezel of the laptop (DELL Latitude E5420). Notice the LCD cable was not properly fixed. I firmly fix the lcd cable to the LCD and assembled the system. Bingo!!! The LCD is back and good. Cool.
LESSON:
I remembered, if a monitor is not properly connected to a system it shows a plain color, like blue or white or red… each of the pins on the cable connector carries a certain color. all pins must make proper contact with the display port for complete color…
Great. It worked! Thanks for putting this together.
This worked exactly as described for my ‘White Screen E5420’. An amazing FIX after trying many other solutions. Thanks!