My Son has a Toshiba Satellite Model A135 Laptop with Vista. The LCD screen broke and their customer service quoted a price which made it not worth replacing.

I tried plugging in a regular VGA Monitor, in the external VGA port. The external monitor displays during boot up and it works in safe mode, but it is completely blank after a normal boot.

I have tried the function keys which toggle between dual and external monitor, I have tried to update the graphics driver, does anyone know of something I can do to get the external monitor working?? Thanks.

Try booting into VGA mode, it may be that the resolution it is set to is too high for the external monitor.

Is there anyone you know that would be competent enough to replace the lcd pannel as you can pick them up on ebay for about $150

I dont know how to reboot into VGA mode, however, I will try to find instructions on the Internet. The LCD is shattered, and we wouldn't be competent to find the right panel, or replace it, unless its very simple. Thanks for the reply.

When you booted into safe mode...there should be a whole list of boot options there-- one of which is usually VGA mode.

Replacing an LCD screen screen is pretty simple. There are free quidelines online like Laptop LCD Removal Instructions .

ScreenTek also sells replacement screens, it's worth asking how much. Also, once you've removed the screen, I'd search for the part number on the back of the screen in Google and see what the search renders. You can get the screen for around $150 and have the laptop back up and running within a few days.

Thanks for the sugestions. I want to post a follow up, in case someone else runs into this, with their Toshiba Laptop.

The keyboard function was not working correctly, (probably ia driver issue), and I found a workaround. The keyboard (function - F5) switches between external monitor, LCD monitor or both. This was working in safe mode, but not under a normal boot. I found that when I went into the accessibility option, I found an option which assists a disabled person to make a key command that requires holding multiple keys. This was called "sticky keys" which allows you to press the Alt or Control or Function key twice, then pressing the second key (F5) worked. Now I am able to operate the laptop with an external monitor, and it looks like I got a free pc, from my sons momentary anger. (A hazard of online poker). Thanks again.