LCD malfunction, now black - not recognized, external still works?

I’ve let this one slide as a friend gave mine lent me a Core i5 for the time being. But that thing is a mess, REALLY slow compared to the quad i7 17”, and my replacement batt just failed and it shuts off every time I unplug it.

I WANT TO RESCUE MY BELOVED 17” MBP!!!

Initially it was a grey screen but external worked, then after a few reboots and cleaning the video card cable on the mainboard, etc… now the screen is black and the display doesn’t appear in the hardware device list / display list.

I really don’t want to mess with separating the trim, overlays, etc on the LCD panel. It was working perfectly before all of this started. **WEIRD CLUE** this all happened when it was plugged into a TV watching a movie, when I unplugged the display port I no longer had my internal LCD.

Does anyone have ideas other than new display? It’s a really powerful machine, and as nice and fast as the new MBP’s are, there’s just something reassuring and beautiful about having the most powerful 17” MBP ever made (got the thing for super cheap on craigslist, like-new!) Kills me to have the thing sitting around doing nothing.