Freezing

Hi,

All of a sudden today the screen for my Z70va started flickering as if there was poor reception. The screen flickers every now and then and then it freezes in its garbled state, and I have to restart, something its never done before. I've never had this TV like problem on a desktop. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

 

it might be your video drivers. What i would do is uninstall your current ones and update them. What video card does your lappie run?

 

Argh when I went to turn it back on the screen doesn't even seem to be working...

 

try hooking it up to an external lcd if you have one. if you see stuff on the external screen, it is an lcd. if not, you gpu may have failed.

 

Sounds like a connector problem to me. You can remove the keyboard via a button in the speaker. The exact location of which I can't be certain. (at least on my 2005 model Z80 it is) if you slide it off you can look inside at fairly well exposed monitor connectors. There are guides online to what exactly everything should look like. There are also very knowledgeable people on this forum who could tell you. This should not void your warranty (though I would check with Asus before proceeding as your warranty may be your best bet here) as this is necessary to replace RAM (again on my similar model). If everything there is in order it may be an internal card issue. The reason I avoid the drivers idea is solely because usually outdated drivers don't just kill the screen, but that still is a possibility. If at all possible try all software based fixes first, before messing with hardware. Of course if your compy is still under warranty and no software fixes work then just send it off to your reseller who will RMA it to Asus. If the warranty is out then go ahead and check, then if the monitor has a busted connector you can A) try to fix the connector, B) buy a new screen and install it or most likely C) time for a new laptop. if the video card blew and you are out of warranty then I'm really sorry, but you are SOL. I hope the latter isn't the case, but if it is I assure you that I have not seen this problem often in Asus computers so if you find another model you like from them it may be fair to give them another chance.
Good Luck with this problem, I hope it turns for the better!

Edit: Just saw your post from eariler, I bet most of this post sounded like stuff you already thought of =P. I will try to dig up the z70va modification guides (basically how to take that panel off) to make myself useful!

 

Best I could find would be either one of the guys on the board who has owned one, call your reseller or call Asus. Asus has been quite helpful to me in the past with removing the (unnecessarily complicated) top panel on my computer. Your reseller should definitely know how to do those things and what to look for. They also know your computer the most intimately, so they may even be able to tell you an issue that we don't know about!

 

Can you point me to a good manual for disassembling the z70va? My laptop suddenly works again but I would like to see what is wrong for myself. Fry's charges 100 bucks for a diagnostic.


Thanks

 

PDF help guide I think that should help! Good Luck!

 

I would try exhausting all software/driver possibilities before dissecting a laptop. It's fairly dangerous to go beyond the RAM, HD, and keyboard since you risk disconnecting items you don't want to and breaking seals you shouldn't. Have you ran stress tests on the video card? Tried newer, older drivers? Reseated the RAM? A visual inspection is unlikely to turn something up unless there's a physical disconnection which would really surprise me.

~ Brett

 

well first order of business would be, as was suggested before, hooking up an external. Then you know the source. Depending on which one it is you will know whether or not to crack the lid. Barebones models don't have seals, they are barebones models. While I would agree with cracking it as a last resort, I would say that if you feel confident enough to put things exactly back together go ahead, no one has to know.

EDIT: Just found out some resellers put their own seals for warranty protection on their own part, if you see any tape or anything like that do not touch it.

 

I have an X700 Radeon mobility although it won't let me update with the catalyst drivers on the website for some reason. I looked at the Mem modules and they seemed to be fine although I didn't try taking them out since I remembered how much of a pain it was to get them in. What are some video card tests you would recommend?

 

Well I opened up the keyboard...problem is...there is a big fat honking cover over the pci module which is supposedly next to where the lcd connector should be found. It looks slightly different from the one in the guide you linked to and is proving too difficult to budge even though they make it look easy.

After reading some threads I figure it might be a bad connection to the lcd since similar problems lead to the flickering with other people (on different brands) and it sometimes stopped temporarily if I moved the computer around. If I could just get to the lcd connector plugin though.

 

Is the screen completely dead or do you see the BIOS splash screen? Reseating the RAM really shouldn't be all that hard, though I doubt it would lead to the type of screen problem you're having. Are you using this link to try to update your drivers? If not give that a go. Good stress tests are Futuremark's (free edition) 3DMark '05 or '06.

~ Brett

 

when the screen does pop up, which it has failed to do a couple times the bios comes on and it looks okay. The fuzziness only really happens once I get into winblows. Incidentally I got around to connecting to a CRT and I didn't get the fuzziness there. The CRT picture looked completely fine while the LCD went fuzzy...but what I did get was the CRT turning on and off once the lcd started going fuzzy and then finally going black once the lcd screen completely froze. Anyway its happening earlier and earlier so I don't have time to run software tests on the laptop and sometimes the comp even resets itself now so I figure its probably hardware. Any ideas?

[EDIT]
I should mention something else here. Before the CRT went completely black the computer apparently froze preventing movement of the mouse cursor. In this time though even though the lcd had static the CRT screen looked completely fine even though I obviously couldn't move around. Then the lcd screen got completely messed up and the CRT went black. So whatever it is it's apparently enough to screw things up beyond the display by crashing the computer.

 

RMA it. This seems like a video card issue. I doubt poking around inside will result in anything good. The sooner you send it in, the sooner you'll have it back. Sorry

~ Brett