Chosen Solution
I’m miffed on this one. The other day, I plugged in an external HD TV to watch a DVD. When I woke up the laptop (still connected to the TV) the next day, the laptop’s display was black (but the backlight was on!) I’ve tried clicking “mirror” and selecting different resolutions to “wake up” the video card an get it to do something, but nothing worked. I restarted it without the external monitor plugged in, and same thing - black. That’s when I really started to freak out. The display shows up in the settings area, I can even slide the brightness and see the backlight change! I’ve tried resetting the SMC but no luck. I’m a professional photographer and I’m about to dive head first into wedding and event season in the coming weeks and can’t afford to lose this thing. :(
I would try disconnecting and cleaning the Lvds cable and the connector on the logic board, with >90% alcohol, preferably with battery disconnected to be on the safe side. Since you’ve already reset Ram and Smc there’s nothing else I can think of, besides trying a known good screen or starting taking measurements on the logic board. A 15" screen would be also suitable for testing purposes and probably easier to find.
