Techstreme

Before you send it in

Before you assume your screen’s broken

A cracked or physically damaged screen almost always needs replacing — but a black, blank, flickering or lined display is sometimes something simpler, and free to fix. These checks take a few minutes and might save you a repair. Honestly, we’d rather you didn’t pay for a screen you don’t need.

Start here

Quick checks — anyone can try these

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    Turn the brightness up. Look for a brightness key (a little sun symbol, usually on F1–F12 — hold Fn if needed). A screen turned right down looks completely dead.
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    Watch for the maker’s logo when it powers on. If you briefly see the manufacturer’s logo (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) at switch-on but the screen goes black as Windows starts to load, the screen itself is working — the problem is in Windows or a driver, not the panel.
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    Reset the graphics driver. Press Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B. The screen blinks and beeps and the graphics restart — you won’t lose any work. This alone fixes a lot of black or frozen screens.
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    Do a full power cycle. Shut down, unplug the charger, take the battery out if it’s removable, hold the power button for about 30 seconds, then start it back up.
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    The wiggle test (for lines, flicker or patches). Gently open and close the lid, or lightly press around the edge of the screen. If the fault comes and goes as you move it, it may be a loose internal cable rather than the screen itself. Be gentle — don’t force anything.
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    Check for a screen protector. If there’s a stick-on film that’s cracked or bubbled, peel it off — the damage might only be the film.
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    Move anything magnetic away. A magnetic phone stand or speaker next to the laptop can trick it into thinking the lid’s shut and switch the screen off.
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    Connect an external monitor or TV (HDMI or USB-C). If it shows a picture, your laptop is working fine and the fault is the screen itself or its cable — try the checks below. If the external screen is also blank, the problem is unlikely to be the screen — it’s more likely a more serious GPU or motherboard fault, which is a different kind of repair that we don’t do.

Needs a working screen to see

If you have a monitor connected and it’s working

Now that you can see Windows on the external screen, you can rule out a few more things:

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    Press Windows + P and choose “PC screen only” (or “Duplicate”). If it was set to “Second screen only”, your laptop’s own screen was simply switched off.
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    Check the brightness slider in Settings → System → Display isn’t at zero, and turn off any automatic/adaptive brightness.
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    Roll back the graphics driver. Right-click Start → Device Manager → Display adapters → right-click your graphics → Properties → Driver → Roll Back Driver (or update/reinstall it). A bad driver update can black out or corrupt the display.
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    Check the resolution and refresh rate in Display settings are the recommended values — the wrong refresh rate can cause flickering.
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    Turn off Night light and colour filters (Settings → System → Display) if the colours look off.
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    Still odd? Booting into Safe Mode loads Windows with only basic drivers. If the picture’s perfect in Safe Mode, it’s a software or driver problem — not the screen.

Tried all that and still stuck?

Then it’s one for us

If the screen’s cracked, black, flickering or showing lines after these checks, that’s exactly what we fix — get a firm, no-obligation quote and we’ll sort it.

Get your quote