In space, no-one can hear you screen

So as many of you will know, not least because I've been bitching about it like a refrigerator that hums too loudly when you're trying to sleep, that my laptop screen bit the dust a few weeks back.

In between bitching like a kid with a broken Xbox, I had a bit of a google and discovered, to my sorta-surprise and sorta-not-surprise that this is a known issue with Toshiba laptops, particularly the Satellite aka cheapo-piece-o-shit range. As is often the case trawling the internet, my heart was warmed by the goodness of humankind as I unearthed reams and reams of helpful, expert advice about what to do, and helpful, expert warnings about what kind of misleading, unhelpful go-se I was going to get from Toshiba if I got in touch with them.

So today, I wielded my itty-bitty Philips head in a bid to try out the various solutions. Many of them involved the replacement of the inverter board between the screen and the base, which I was really hoping I wouldn't have to do. I was holding out a special hope that once the screen bezel was off, I'd discover that one of the dinky little connectors wasn't seated properly and shazam! My problems would be solved.

Everything went smoothly until I got to the part where the screen bezel met the hinges of the laptop. Then it became a complete mystery how the thing was clipped together and I abandoned my attempt to completely remove the bezel for fear of destroying something. So I wedged the bezel away from the circuit board with the filing blade of my swiss army knife, pointed my halogen desk lamp into the darkness, and peered in. No connectors were to be seen, so I had to assume they were in the part of the hinge that I hadn't managed to uncover. There's the circuit board. Looks fine. There's the closing pin. Also good. Turning my neck at a completely unergonomic angle, I can just see the connector ribbon disappearing into the nether regions. I turn my head a bit further and hurt myself.

Bollocks. (Shazam, indeed). Too difficult. If I mess around any more, I'm going to break something and a laptop with its ass working attached to the neuron-frying CRT is better than no laptop at all.

So I clip the bezel back on, power up, and ... SHAZAM! The screen works like a charm!

The Force is strong with this one.