W3J no video

I've had a W3J for almost three years now, and it's worked great up until last week when the video card (I presume) died, came back to life, then died again today. The problem has been exactly like royrules22 had with his W3J, except mine has gone blank again. In summary: I booted it up and there was no picture, and no VGA video out. Beyond video, the system appeared to be running fine: I could hear the startup noise, log in, start Firefox, and listen to internet radio (all through memory). Figuring that I couldn't make it worse I disassembled the top of the laptop and reset the video cable. Booting it back up again... the video was working! I doubt my fiddling around had anything to do with the resurrection, though, since royrules22's came back without any prodding. A little under a week went by without any issues, and then today there was no video again.

I feel like I've got a fair amount of use out of my W3J and my data's backed up so I'm not desperate, but this is still annoying. Anyone have an suggestions as to what may be causing this, and/or how to fix it?

 

It could be bad video card, LCD or the inverter board, have you try connect it to a external monitor? if it works on external monitor then most likely your LCD or inverter board is defective, if it doesn't work on external monitor then it's the bad video card.

 

I have tried to connect it to an external monitor - no luck. It does seem like a bad video card, but I'm wondering if the problem lies in a connection rather than the card itself. One thing that I forgot to mention is that for a while (~2 months) there has been an issue where, if I put pressure on the handrests of the laptop or hold it with one hand so it flexes, the screen flickers all white or black. After the laptop was released, picture returned instantly.

 

Sounds like connection problem, here is the disassembly guide if you want to try check the connection:

http://www.gentechpc.com/Asus/W3Ja/W3A-Chapter-03-v1.1.pdf

 

Fixed! Turns out it was a loose VGA card, and that re-attaching it solved the problem.

I ended up sending the laptop to ASUS even though it was out of warranty. They said that they would diagnosis it for free, then let me know the cost of repair so that I could decide whether it was worth it. As it turns out they never contacted me; instead, they shipped it right back with the video card re-attached for free! It was a simple fix but they still could have charged me (especially for the return shipping). I'm quite grateful to ASUS' repair service.

 

Thats great news. My w3j is still going strong after 3 years. Only thing I've had to fix/replace was the keyboard and that was because *I* spilled water on it .

 

Thanks for posting the guide. I have added it to the ASUS Info Booth.