HP pavilion dv2500 won't boot

Laptop right? The LCD screen's backlight inverter might have gone out. The symptom of that is there actually is something on the screen if you shine a flashlight to it you will very carefully see things on the screen.

Using a secondary monitor typically doesn't help as a diagnostic tool for a backlight inverter problem.

Or, since this person is clumsy, you could be looking at a double whammy, where both the backlight inverter board AND the actual backlight is out.

If that symptom is true, these inverters are typically replaceable, and the parts are relatively easy to find on ebay or start at google products and go from there.

However, actually replacing the inverter board can be a very involved process depending on its location on the laptop, and I would not even go near the idea if your not comfortable doing things like taking apart the laptop. You'll need to do this anyway to get the right part number. You could reference its manual, but sometimes they aren't accurate enough to actually getting the part number from the physical part itself.

Thanks for the response. I'm guessing the person is going to just buy a new laptop at this point, though I'm still a little curious at finding the root problem(s).

I shined a flashlight on the screen when I powered it on, but couldn't see anything. So maybe both went out as you suggest.

I now know that at one point, the motherboard was replaced due to an unfortunate incident with a liquid. However, there was still some time between that and when this problem occurred.