Both built-in display and external vga display have lost video

[JimCarter_exHP]

Within 15 minutes, the external display went from fully functional to blinking color bars over the top of a unreadable message, followed by complete black and white herringbone screen. I disconnected the display and internal display is complete blank, not so much as a flicker during boot, even though I can see the LED indicators come on and flicker as expected. Since there is no visible response, the only way to shut down was with a continuously pressed power button.

This has been a reliable workhorse that lost a harddrive so was resurrected with SSD. I hate to think it is terminal now.

[WAWood]

When BOTH the laptop screen and external display go bad, the only common thing for the two is the video chipset in the laptop.  You could try a different external monitor and/or a different video cable -- but I suspect the result will be the same -- and if so, the laptop is basically dead, as without video, you can't use it.