Will A Laptop Post Without An LCD Screen?

[lonelypauly]

This one is kind of wacky, but here goes.

I came across a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop here at work in our IT stash of old ass computers. The LCD screen is missing as in a headless laptop (kind of weird) and cannot be found anywhere. Realizing that the laptop will not POST in this condition, would there be a way to terminate the inverter wire or something and connect an external monitor to get it to POST? (assuming there are no other problems). I have tried the FN + F8 thing with a known good external monitor but there is no signal. I wonder if the primary video signal has to be working in order for secondary video to work. I would hate to just give up on this laptop if I could use it for something as we have loads of desktop monitors around here.

Thanks,
P Mo Mo

 

[frozenlead]

There's no reason the notebook shouldn't POST without a monitor attached. Once you attach an external monitor and power the notebook on, the notebook should automatically output to that monitor. I'm thinking you have bigger problems here.

 

[lonelypauly]

sounds good. i will begin troubleshooting.

Thanks!