Display stopped working, laptop itself works

Hi there,

I have had this Macbook around for quite a while (bought the late 2011 model as soon as it came out). Roughly two years ago, the display of my laptop stopped working completely (the backlit Apple is dead, so is the display). I never had any major display issues, this was totally out of the blue.

Thinking this was mostly a display failure issue, I brought the laptop to the Apple store I bought the laptop in. I was notified that this was not only a display issue, but it was something related to the motherboard monitor connector (I'm sorry, can't remember the exact words they said, it's been a long time) related to water damage (the laptop has been in damp environments a couple of times), and they wanted to replace monitor + motherboard for something like 600+euros or something insane like that. Being in a hurry and not wanting to invest that much money in a oldish laptop, I refused the repair and called it a day.

I tried to turn the laptop on today, because hey why not, and the display is obviously still not working, however I want to give it a try to fix it on my own.I wanted to know

: there is any way to know if the monitor is actually dead or if it could just be a connector issue? Is there any way I can check if there actually was any serious water damage? If the display was not damaged, would there be a way to fix the connection without replacing the whole motherboard?

If pictures of the inside of the laptop could help judging, I could take them .

Thanks,

Luca