Monitor with no display - restart only shows splash screen then it's dark

Hi I am having a problem in my laptop display.

I have this Dell Inspiron 6400 that I bought in 2006. Last night while playing a movie at full screen mode, the monitor lost display, while the voice/sound still indicate that the computer is working and the movie being played. I moved the mouse and hit Esc key, but see no response from the monitor.

Shut off the computer and restarted. Only was able to see the display of the splash screen, which strangely turned a bit pink (should be white). And I can here a little 'sizzling' sound during this process. Then I would see nothing being displayed at all on the screen.

Please, any help to diagnose what problem this is? I know this is an old laptop, but I have important data stored in it, and would like to make it work properly again.

Thank you!

 

You can tell pretty easily by attaching a monitor to the video port in the laptop but it sounds like the video card is shot which of course in the case of a laptop means the motherboard which is almost never worth replacing because of the expense. If it looks ok in a monitor than you have the answer if not we go further.

 

I just experienced the same issue a few days ago with my desktop. In my case, my monitor being somewhat old bit the dust. I replaced the monitor and here I am on the forum and all is working well again. I did have a techie come in and check the hardware. He brought along another monitor with him, did the test and that solved my problem. Since my desktop is only about a year old, it paid me to buy a new monitor. Just my experience I am passing along.