inspiron 1520 black screen on boot

my inspiron 1520 is getting a black screen when i boot and it just stays black. i did a display test on it by holding D and the power button. the display test was a success so it's not the display's fault. i'm pretty sure it's the GPU, because i've tested it by trying to hook it up to an external monitor and nothing showed up. but before i waste money on a new GPU, i want to know:

1) how do i test the motherboard to see if there is anything wrong with the mobo?

2) how do i start the laptop so that the POST codes will show up? i'm talking about these codes here Dell Portable Post Codes i don't know how to get those codes to show up cause they can help me alot. is there a certain key i have to press to show in that mode?

thanks a lot in advance.

 

seriously, I wouldn't bother with repairing it if it's this old, having a MB fault and being a dell inspiron.

I was about to repair Inspiron 1501 or something like that once with screen issues (was ok on external) and by the time the new screen arrived, the optical drive broke. So then had to deal with screen return and the owner just decided to buy a new one.

so my advice is - put it on ebay as faulty, and buy a new one. Any new laptop will be better than that anyway.

WIth the old one, you fix one fault and the next day another one appears.

 

i have finals and programming projects due in one week. i have tons of crap on this laptop and it's also dual booted (triple booted if you count OSX on vmware). so i got tons of stuff and info on it and buying a new laptop, reinstalling everything, moving eveerything, setting up for my stuff for programming on each OS (windows, ubuntu) takes lots of time, not to mention waiting to the new laptop to come would take time too. so i need a quick temp fix cause i can't stay at at school all day to get my stuff done, they won't let me and also i don't want to lol.

i've bought a new gpu from amazon and hopefully it should arrive in 2 days, i'll update you you when it comes. hopefully it's just the GPU that's the problem and nothing else. before my computer died, i saw some artifacting on the screen so i'm pretty sure it's the GPU, just hoping that it's only the GPU

 

Pretty sure it's the GPU as well. You're lucky that the 1520 has a removable GPU and that replacements are cheap

 

actually i had this same problem with the GPU 3 years back. except at that time, the 8600m gt was $190 - $200+. so i ended up renewing my warranty which was cheaper and a better option and dell fixed it for me. today the 8600m gt is only $15 on amazon. such a huge difference in only 3 years.