am i screwed?

[icekangz817]

Hello Gents,

Recently i came home from work one day and thought my laptop had shut down because the screen went blank (like it was off completely), so i push the power button so it turns off (the hard drive did anyways). So i pushed the power button again and it goes to boot up like it normally does, but the monitor is so dimm you can barely see anything on the screen. It looks almost completely dark, but if you look close enough you can see the windows and icons on the screen (but like i said, BARELY). So i hooked up my desktop monitor to it and i can see clear as day running off the laptop hard drive, but still can't see anything on the laptop screen. To make a long story short, am i screwed or what? Will i need to replace the whole monitor (not sure of what the cost is gonna be), could it be repaired without replacing the monitor (which would be cheaper i would think), and if replacing the monitor was the only choice would i be better off buying a desktop monitor and using that? Your expertise and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ice