laptop display doesn't work 19 out of 20 times

I know there can be many reasons for this, but currently my Toshiba satellite laptop is not showing the display. It's been running ubuntu in various versions for 2 years now. The last install I had was running pretty hot, I couldn't manage to tweak it for some reason as well as I had in the past. But now the computer seems to be functioning, but most of the time the display never lights up at all, not even BIOS. however the one out of approximately 20 times it works, it works 100% normally.

Please, what could be the problem? I know it's probably not an ubuntu issue, but need help? Is it a CPU issue? why does it work occasionally?

Sounds like a hardware problem, tell me, if you tilt the screen when it isn't 'working' do you see the faint (un-lit) outline of anything on the screen?

nope, looked at it carefully from different angles and nothing at all is visible. i guess i am curious if there is a way i can easily troubleshoot this? i have no problem taking apart a desktop PC, but this laptop is a real pain to disassemble... any ideas or suggestions?

edit: and by real pain i mean i really, really don't want to unless i have to

Whelp, it could be a few things, if you don't want to take it apart you really only have one option, take it to a pro. If you are in the Cincinnati, OH area, bring it to me and I'll diagnose it for free.

-Since you aren't even seeing the BIOS screen:

It could be a bad vga chipset (if so that means buying a new motherboard or having the chipset reballed or reflowed with a heat gun) it could be the backlight, it could be that the screen itself is bad, it could be the power inverter that supplies the ccfl bulb (if it uses a ccfl, if not, and it is LED then the entire screen is bad). It could also be that your power jack needs to be repaired (perhaps a bad connection, intermittently getting power), it could be bad ram that is intermittently allowing you to boot and other times not. One thing is for sure, though, it isn't ubuntu that caused the issue. Sounds like a trip to the shop is in your future. If you decide to try to repair this yourself, ask for help! I bet myself or someone else here will walk you through repair attempts.

One very easy way to diagnose whether it's the VGA or not is to attach a second monitor to the laptop and see if it works that way, if so, your Graphics chipset is not the issue :)