B130 Black Screen Problems

OK so, my Inspiron B130 boots but to a black screen. When I press power it sometimes flashes the BIOS screen that says DELL in big blue letters, then the screen goes black. I know it boots because the wifi light lights up and it wouldn't do that if it never got into windows. I can hook up an external monitor and press Fn+F8 to switch from the laptop's lcd to the monitor. That's what I'm typing this from. I've tried setting the laptop as the primary screen, when I do that it flashes whatever I have open on the lcd, but only for a few seconds, then the screen goes dark. It doesn't go off, it just gets really, really dark, I can see the outlines of the windows, but that's about it. It's certainly not usable that dark. I have the brightness on the laptop turned up all the way so I know it's not that. After 15 seconds it'll automatically switch back to the monitor, like it should. I think this is most likely a hardware problem since nothing new has been installed recently and the screen will work for just a few seconds. The laptop is just over 2 years old, just out of warranty. yay... Inspiron B130 T9C2K-7W2P7-YQWQY-YKGFJ-T9FYT Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 The external monitor I'm using is also a Dell. Thank you for any and all help!