Bebop,

now that you get the background on your expternal monitor, you should be able to right click with your mouse and pull up graphic properties. What is happening at the moment is that your laptop is using the external monitor as a desktop extension. If possible, try to disable that option under graphic properties and you should be able to get the icons on the external monitor.

I brought a laptop in for repair the tech told me these are now throw away items as the prices have plumeted on laptops & notebooks now....not worth fixing vs labor costs. so I sold it for parts on ebay and bought a new one.

thanks guys,
I am unable to bring up the graphics menus on the external monitor.
I get a menu with three items comes up but none of them work.
Thanks Donie but I just don't feel like tossing a computer that cost over 2000.00 and buying a replacement that even now is well over a thousand dollars.
Best regards and thanks to all,
Bebop

Bill good luck to you....life was so easy before computers eh?.....

100% right Dnj, bin it it's not worth the trouble.

Bill is right don't try to take it apart it will never go back the same way, or at all and it you touch parts near the screen BEWARE you will get one hell of an elctrical shock the screens run at 400 volts plus. It will come as a surprise to you, I've done it and it went in bin the repair cost more than a new pc, take out the HD and put it into a caddy and get the data off, trash can for the bits.

Thanks Tony,
I have decided to take it over to the shop that does most all the laptop repairs in this area and get their quote for repair, then I will decide what to do with or about it.
I have built many computers from scratch and repaired everyone I had that broke as well as most of my friends and neighbors but........I have never seen the inside of a laptop and after reading the posts above, I am not sure I ever want to.
thanks again to all who helped here.
Bebop

edt: sorry i misread your post.

if you can see a picture on the external monitor your graphics chip is fine, your screen has had it and needs changing. the backlight has gone too.

at the moment you probably have the computer set to "extended desktop" which is why you have no icons on the external screen.

here is what i posted before...but you can disregard this:

I repair laptops as part of my job.

First of all its not the screen as the problem happens on the external monitor too.

so it has to be either the software driver (go to toshibas website and download the driver for your laptop) or a problem with the graphics chip/ graphics memory.

1) if the problem occurs after its been on for a few minutes it could be the graphics chip overheating. You need to clean out the fans if thats the case.

2) if the lines come and go if you flex the laptop then you most likely have a graphics chip that has dry joints, it means having to reflow the main board and probably not something you want to do.

3) shared memory for graphics?...try removing, cleaning the pins and refitting the ram.

[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 07-03-2010).]

the screen of the laptop monitor lights up to gray but nothing else is on it until the hard drive finishes booting up and then it has verticle light blue stripes from 1/8 inch to an inch wide. No curser either internal or external. No control of any kind to do anything with.
the external monitor only has the desktop graphic on it and no icons, but it does have a curser but it won't do anything.
Bebop

BEBOP,

When you get the report back from your repair shack, I think you will find it will be uneconomical to repair, in the last 4 years laptops have reduced 30% in the UK, I have just bought a 3 core for £330.00. They are throw away items sometimes you do get a goody that last years, if you throw it around in the car it doesn’t help, screw come loose, pcb tracks breaks and Oh that cable that joins the base to the screen they break too.
Let your local shack engineer take a look don’t go at it with a screwdriver!
Tony