Quick!!!!

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

I had some free time tonight so I decided to tinker with my fried laptop.
It's an inspiron 1420 (piece of fucking shit) with an integrated nvidia 8400 graphics card.
Last spring the display died. Ran a beep diagnostic and it indicated lcd failure, so I replaced the screen. Nothing.
It has to be the graphics card.
It turns on, but the screen stays black blah blah.
Anyways, I  have a few questions.
I'd like to connect it to an external monitor just to make sure, but I'm not sure exactly how to go through with it.
I've got just a regular pc lcd external monitor sitting here.
Cords I need? Which hookups? etc.

I'm way out of my element here and I know there's some very technology literate people flying around here.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the dumb questions.

[ME##]

To hook it up to a monitor, all you need is a monitor with a VGA input, and then when you turn the computer on, look at the keyboard for the Fn key and look for 'CRT/LCD' in blue on one of the F keys. 

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

Alright I'm getting a visual, but I'm getting start-up repair now.
I'm kind of thinking It's not going to go anywhere after this.


*UPDATE*

It's fucking up to an extreme level when it passes startup repair, but I'm starting to get these quick flickers when I hit the function/lcd thing. It got to the point where I could read the intel logo on the screen, but there was no backlight so it was almost invisible.

When that happens, there's a split second audible buzz and it switches back to the external monitor.
Any ideas what might be happening?

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

I'm having people tell me it could be a fucked hard drive preventing windows from booting. Confirm/deny.
Sorry for the dub posting, but now that I started fucking with this again, I"m interested to see what needs to be done.

[?????]

I'm having people tell me it could be a fucked hard drive preventing windows from booting. Confirm/deny.
Sorry for the dub posting, but now that I started fucking with this again, I"m interested to see what needs to be done.

I dunno, why don't you just back up your HDD and re-install Windows? Then you could get all your shit back from the backup you would've made.

[the shortest route to the sea]

If you're not getting past bios, then wouldn't the bios settings be fucked up, implying that you need a new motherboard?

[Cookie]

Why are you bothering fixing this? I have an old crappy laptop that I thought would be cool to install ubuntu onto. Haven't touched it since.

[?????]

If you're not getting past bios, then wouldn't the bios settings be fucked up, implying that you need a new motherboard?

Getting past bios? Do you mean the post screen?
BIOS = basic input output system
POST = power on self test

btw has op tried running a live cd? If the live cd works then he doesn't need a new mobo then he could back up his hdd and he can reformat the hdd yes or no

sorry for crappy post I'm on my iPod