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Question

Broken Laptop Monitor Question

Feb 16, 2020 3:04PM PST

Hello,
I have an Dell Inspiron 15 touchscreen laptop that I broke recently. A portion of the plastic surrounding the keyboard came loose and I tried to fix it. Long story short, I eventually messed up the connection to the monitor. The left hinge came loose and the screen blacked out. The display no longer works at all. I guess my question is, because the only portion of the laptop that doesn't work is the connection to the display, is there some way to keep all of the other parts and connect them to a new monitor? It wouldn't even need to be a laptop display. I just need it to work again. I'm pretty clueless about computers so any help is appreciated. I can attach pictures if that's helpful.
Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Maybe.
Feb 16, 2020 4:24PM PST

Try connecting some TV from the HDMI port of the laptop and see if that works. I take it as the owner you know your laptop well enough about Function Keys to see if you can switch to the external connection.

If that fails then it's too far gone and doesn't support such a setup.

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Answer
Exact combination of buttons to switch to external display.
Feb 16, 2020 8:32PM PST

If when you plug your HDMI betwen laptop and external display, it doesn't automatically switch display modes, if you can remember the step by step from the time you turn your laptop on to the option of switching to external display options then do that when you plug into the TV or other external device. If you don't remember the way to do that blindly, then ask a friend to help you mimic their way, meaning do what they do as they go through the process. I hope that helps.

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Answer
Re: external monitor
Feb 17, 2020 3:46AM PST

The way to switch to an external monitor, connected to HDMI, is
1. Win-key + P (from Projector)
2. End (to go to the latest choice: only projector)
3. Enter (to confirm the choice)

Try it on a working laptop if you can't get it working.