How to tell if monitor or video card is busted on laptop?

I have an aged (3 years) HP laptop and a few months ago my monitor was not working (or so I thought). I connected an external monitor through the VGA out, and the external monitor gives a "no signal" error even after cycling through video-out (via Func+F4). The monitor works... it is what I use on my desktop.



I also tried the s-vid out to my other working monitor with no success. And I tried the s-vid out to my tv... doesn't work. It sounds like a video card issue, right?! Does anyone have any experience with this? Or advice?! I'd rather not go to a repair shop if I can fix it myself. Again, this is a laptop I am talking about.



I've thought about a USB video card (from IOGear, etc.) but it requires a driver install... which needs a monitor, right? I also thought about a port replicator, but I do not have experience with this and I'm wondering if it will work if the video card is bad on the board.



Any help will be much appreciated.|||A 'no signal' error does not necesarly mean a fried video card, or bad motherboard. Could be an unsupported resolution issue, or something.



Same goes for S-Video. The real question is, had you ever had any success connecting that laptop to the TV with the S-Video? If you had done it before, then yeah, you probably have something wrong with the motherboard(I suspect the video card in integrated because of the age of the laptop).



If in fact the video card is busted, then no, a port replicator won't work, and probably the only way to fix it is to replace the mobo.



The IOgear thing seems like a good idea(although to be sincere, that's the first time I see an external video card on the market).



http://www.everythingusb.com/iogear_usb_…

According to that site , it's plug and play meaning the drivers install by themselves the moment you plug it to a windows machine.



But even if it's not plug and play, maybe you could install it on one computer, and take note step by step how to install it, and make it work, without the use of a mouse(like pressing TAB, and Enter to navigate through the setup process).



The only problem I see, is that the video card is designed to output a signal to a second external monitor, not back into the laptop, meaning your laptop will have to become a desktop for the rest of it's days.|||run HP's systems check on your laptop by connecting to their website