Studio 1525 Main Display Not Working

I have a Dell Studio 1525. I just bought an Acer external monitor, to hook up to it. Once I hooked it up, and selected "projector only" when hitting win+P, display of course showed only on the external monitor. All is well; however, I can't get my main laptop to ever display now. I can instead select "computer only", "duplicate", "extend", or just unplug the external all together, but nothing happens. It's like the computer doesn't think the main display is connected anymore. I have tried the basics of restarting, and reinstalling the video card driver again, but it didn't help.

I don't think my laptop screen is dead because it was working fine until I plugged it into the external monitor. I've also had it plugged into other externals before this one, and the laptop screen displayed as it should.

Any advice on how to get my screen back?

 

I would replace the LVDS cable before the LCD.

 

What is and LVDS cable, and would it necessarily fail the minute I connect a new external display? I feel that it's something software related, but I don't know much about computers. I just assume it's a long shot that hardware would fail at exactly the same time as a new monitor was brought into the picture.

 

If it displays externally then it is not a software issue, so it is hardware. LVDS is the LCD cable. It is a far cheaper part than the LCD. Or if you can buy an entire 1525 LCD on Ebay or something. I did that for my T60, I ordered the entire SXGA+ LCD module, straight swap.

 

Okay great. I found one on ebay for the studio 1558 for $20. Is there a way to test my LVDS cable to ensure it's dead? Also, where can I find if the 1558 cable will work in my 1525?