No display on Samsung NP300 E5C

Hi,
My friend’s Samsung NP300 E5C laptop was working when suddenly the screen went dark. When I try a reboot, it makes the usual noises but the screen remains dark. The keyboard indicates that Fn + F4 will output the display to an external monitor, so I hooked one up and tried it but the external was getting no signal. I removed the hard drive and plugged it into another computer. Chkdsk showed no errors, and all of it was accessible. Any suggestions before we scrap it for parts?