Wife just got a 1420, screen does not work!

So my wife just got a 1420 in the mail yesterday. Turned it on, nothing comes on the screen. I can tell that the screen is getting power, but that is it. I hook up a external monitor and that works no problem. But Vista does not detect that there is a notebook screen installed at all.

Being the tech that I am, I take off the keyboard, reseat the connection to the motherboard, and still nothing. Decided to take it one step further and took out the lcd panel itself, reseat all connections that I see. And I actually got it to post. Turned it back off and again nothing.

Sure, I probably should not be doing all of this to a new laptop. But this is why I decided to see if it was just a connection that came loose in transit.

We live in Alaska. Dell only ships next-day air to Alaska via DHL (which is actually very very good up here). So when she calls for a refund, they tell her that they will pay for shipping back, but it will be via UPS ground (which I can only assume will be 8-10 days of shipping, or maybe longer). Then of course she has to wait for them to get it and then they said up to 30 days for a refund back to her card.

So this is just frustrating. She went back to college, which requires a computer. She has been borrowing a laptop for work (a corporate rental and staging company), but now we need the laptop back for a month long rental.

On the technical side, does anyone have a suggestion on what this could be, and if it is just a loose connection?