Are you a laptop troubleshooter? I need some advice.

[igloo iguana]

I have an Averatec 6100 series laptop I bought back in 2004.
It has worked great until it just went BLACK SCREEN. My wife was using it and it just all the sudden went black. It was still on and running but you could not see anything on the screen.
I tried to hook it up to my monitor and it showed the bios averatec splash screen but would not do anything else.
Since I could see this Averatec splash screen I thought it might me a bad hard drive. So I bought a new one and put it in today and still nothing- BLACK SCREEN.

Could it be the video card?
Can you replace them on laptops? I did some searching and I read that video cards cannot be replaced unless it is a special type of MB.

Any of you have any idea on what I can try next.

Also if the video card is bad, trying to hook up another monitor won't work will it?

Thanks

[Brandito]

I have an Averatec 6100 series laptop I bought back in 2004.
It has worked great until it just went BLACK SCREEN. My wife was using it and it just all the sudden went black. It was still on and running but you could not see anything on the screen.
I tried to hook it up to my monitor and it showed the bios averatec splash screen but would not do anything else.
Since I could see this Averatec splash screen I thought it might me a bad hard drive. So I bought a new one and put it in today and still nothing- BLACK SCREEN.

Could it be the video card?
Can you replace them on laptops? I did some searching and I read that video cards cannot be replaced unless it is a special type of MB.

Any of you have any idea on what I can try next.

Also if the video card is bad, trying to hook up another monitor won't work will it?

Thanks

tried starting in safe mode? do you get anything after the initial bios splash screen?

[igloo iguana]

Right now I see nothing on the screen. It is totally blank. I can start it and I see the HD light flickering like it is working. but nothing shows up on the screen.

[mr_raider]

I'm guessing it's the ziff connector from the laptop motherboard to the LCD screen.

You can try to take it apart and see if you can fix it.

[igloo iguana]

Do you have a suggested website that will tell/show me how to work on laptops?

[mr_raider]

http://forum.notebookreview.com/

[igloo iguana]

http://forum.notebookreview.com/

Thanks

[Spankin Partier]

Does the screen light up at all? If not, look very closely at the screen under the right lighting you may actually see something. I had a laptop where the back light ended up dieing (actually caused by a bad wire in the hinge). We would have to play with screen position to get it to work. Ended up sending it in to get a new screen.

In the mean time, if you don't want to fix it, for fear of loosing the whole laptop, put the old HDD back in (I doubt it was bad), then plug the monitor back into the laptop. Turn them both on, wait a couple minuites for Windows to boot up and then send the video from the laptop screen to the monitor (many laptops have this disabled by default to save power). To enable it you'll have to look for two keys on the keyboard. The first will probably be called Fn and usually be blue or some other colour. Then look for another key (usually one of the Function keys F1 to F12). One of them will have either an blue icon of a monitor or say CRT/LCD. Push and hold the Fn key then press the CRT/LCD key. Wait for 5 seconds. If nothing has happened on the external screen, try it again. You may have to do this 3 times before it works.

Here's a couple images of the keys you should look for:

[igloo iguana]

Does the screen light up at all? If not, look very closely at the screen under the right lighting you may actually see something. I had a laptop where the back light ended up dieing (actually caused by a bad wire in the hinge). We would have to play with screen position to get it to work. Ended up sending it in to get a new screen.

In the mean time, if you don't want to fix it, for fear of loosing the whole laptop, put the old HDD back in (I doubt it was bad), then plug the monitor back into the laptop. Turn them both on, wait a couple minuites for Windows to boot up and then send the video from the laptop screen to the monitor (many laptops have this disabled by default to save power). To enable it you'll have to look for two keys on the keyboard. The first will probably be called Fn and usually be blue or some other colour. Then look for another key (usually one of the Function keys F1 to F12). One of them will have either an blue icon of a monitor or say CRT/LCD. Push and hold the Fn key then press the CRT/LCD key. Wait for 5 seconds. If nothing has happened on the external screen, try it again. You may have to do this 3 times before it works.

Here's a couple images of the keys you should look for:

Thanks for the info.

I tried hooking it up to a monitor, hit FN+F4 and still nothing. Tried hitting it once, three times, and several times. Still nothing.

I can't see any image on the screen either.

Has the LCD gone bad?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[Spankin Partier]

Well I took a look at the manual for your laptop ( http://www.trigem.com/us/support/manuals.asp ), and yes, Fn+F4 is the key combination that you should use. I'm surprised that nothing showed up on either monitor (built in LCD or external monitor). Even if you had a bad HDD I would have expected to see something. Even if it was just an error message.

Not sure where to go from here.

[Pc geek]

Sounds like your video card has taken a crap on you.

[igloo iguana]

Sounds like your video card has taken a crap on you.

yeah I think so too.

And from what I am finding you can't replace a video card.

[Brandito]

yeah I think so too.

And from what I am finding you can't replace a video card.

nope, because in the majority of laptops with discrete graphics the gpu is soldered directly to the mobo, so less a card really.

[Spankin Partier]

If the video card is shot, then why can igloo i see the post screen when he has an external screen plugged in?

This is what has me really perplexed.

[Spankin Partier]

If the video card is truly shot, then something like this might be your only option (other then a new laptop):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834999071

They are not great by any means. You'll be limited to a low resolution monitor, and Targa doesn't plan on making any 64 bit drivers.

Personally, I'd just on getting a new laptop then to buy this, but it is an option.

Edit: Another problem with this idea is you can't install the needed drivers without your video card working.