Help, laptop screen dead ...

johnnytee

..... my other half has a Compaq Presario, the screen is a totally dead. When she switches the machine on All power and indicator led's seem to be operating normally. Got me stumped!

sam.wright_2

Saw this on another website- might be worth a try.

Check out the troubleshooting section for your model laptop on HP's website. This is a known problem with several models of HP / Compaq laptops. Their advice is to upgrade the BIOS but that can't be done if the laptop won't post. Have you tried connecting the laptop to an external monitor to see if it is an LCD backlight problem? Try that and if you get a POST display then you have an LCD problem (either the backlight or the LCD close switch). If you still don't get a display try the following steps.
1. Remove battery
2. Disconnect AC adapter
3. Press and hold the power switch for 15 to 20 seconds
4. Connect the AC adapter and try to start the laptop.
If this works, check the BIOS and update if needed. If this doesn't work, try the same steps but remove the memory before pressing and holding the power switch (Step 3) and reinstall the memory before Step 4. If you still have no luck, you may want to try to check the processor. The 700s have been known to suffer from processor failures due to overheating. If your laptop has an AMD processor and you have access to a desktop computer with a later model Socket 462 processor socket, you should be able to test your processor with it. Just verify the motherboard will support your processor first.

Hope this helps.

Sam

gaming_guy

.............

johnnytee

sam.wright wrote: »

Saw this on another website- might be worth a try.

Check out the troubleshooting section for your model laptop on HP's website. This is a known problem with several models of HP / Compaq laptops. Their advice is to upgrade the BIOS but that can't be done if the laptop won't post. Have you tried connecting the laptop to an external monitor to see if it is an LCD backlight problem? Try that and if you get a POST display then you have an LCD problem (either the backlight or the LCD close switch). If you still don't get a display try the following steps.
1. Remove battery
2. Disconnect AC adapter
3. Press and hold the power switch for 15 to 20 seconds
4. Connect the AC adapter and try to start the laptop.
If this works, check the BIOS and update if needed. If this doesn't work, try the same steps but remove the memory before pressing and holding the power switch (Step 3) and reinstall the memory before Step 4. If you still have no luck, you may want to try to check the processor. The 700s have been known to suffer from processor failures due to overheating. If your laptop has an AMD processor and you have access to a desktop computer with a later model Socket 462 processor socket, you should be able to test your processor with it. Just verify the motherboard will support your processor first.

Hope this helps.

Sam

Thanks for that Sam. I'm afraid it didn't work.

I've been doing a bit of research online. It appears there is a problem with the Nvidia chipset overheating and going kaput in many HP models.From what I've read I think this is what's happened.

I'm off into town to get a cable to link it to another monitor. I'm not optomistic!

My other half is in bits as she has lost 100's of photos. Is there any way of retrieving the data on there?

danthemoneysavingman

There may well be nothing wrong with the hard drive. You can buy a 2.5" external USB-based housing off ebay for £2.50, so don't sweat it.

kwikbreaks

If it was networked the lack of screen won't stop you accessing it but it would obviously be tricky sharing data that wasn't already shared or installing LogMeIn or VNC with no screen.

Assuming you can't get network access to it the easiest option would be to take the disk out (google is your friend here if it isn't obvious how to do that) and then buy the correct usb caddy (SATA or IDE/PATA) so you can plug it into another machine and get at the data - Amazon or eBay are probably cheapest sources.

johnnytee

gaming_guy wrote: »

Have you tried connecting the laptop to another external monitor?

If it displays an image on the external screen (you may have to press a combination of buttons such as FN + F7 to switch the output) it should rule out something like a graphics card failure.

I have the two laptops connected via a VGA cable. I've tried pressing those combinations FN and F7 but nothing is coming up. Would that be because the video chipset is kaput?

fwor

johnnytee wrote: »

I have the two laptops connected via a VGA cable. I've tried pressing those combinations FN and F7 but nothing is coming up. Would that be because the video chipset is kaput?

You (generally) can't connect one laptop as a display for another. You need to use a separate monitor.

Also, the key to switch to an external display varies. I have a Compaq here which uses Fn F4. It is clearly marked on the keyboard, though.

johnnytee

Well, I've hooked it up to a separate monitor but still can't see the display. Which means the video card is, as suspected shafted. I guess the only option now is to obtain a caddie for the HD. Can anyone explain (SATA or IDE/PATA)

fwor

There's a few ways to tell, but easiest is: IDE - lots of visible pins (40?) on the drive, SATA - narrow cable, only 8 pins which are shrouded on both drive and plug.

johnnytee

I've just extracted the hdd. It has a line of 15-ish pins, then another line of 7. Neither 40 or 8.??????