The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Laptop Screen Flickering and Burning

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by Draperies, Apr 8, 2009.

  1. Draperies

    Draperies Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I have a 4 year old Dell Inspiron 6000 that has recently been giving me a number of problems. For the past two days the laptop has been flickering between the display and a black screen, with it becoming somewhat more frequent as time went on.

    I had read that it may be a loose wire and I had planned on opening it up and attempting to fix it myself (the warranty is over and I'd rather attempt to fix it myself first before paying to have it fixed at extremely high prices). However, the lower right corner of the screen has recently started to become incredibly hot and noticeable smoke and burning has begun to occur. I immediately shut off and unplugged the computer and have not used it since.

    Does anyone have any idea as to what could cause such a problem and if there is anything I can do to try and fix it myself? As of now I need to work from my friend's computer and I would much rather get this fixed on my own than wait weeks for repair and pay the price for it (which I can't really afford right now). Thanks in advance.
     
    Draperies, Apr 8, 2009
    #1
  2. Convoluted

    Convoluted Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    74
    Messages:
    690
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Uh, smoke is never a good sign. Perhaps a short somewhere? You might as well tinker with it, no point sending it out for repair. Might also be something wrong with the graphics chip...
     
    Convoluted, Apr 8, 2009
    #2
  3. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    3,905
    Messages:
    6,116
    Likes Received:
    89
    Trophy Points:
    216
    Possibly cracked screen. I have a crack in the top middle of my 710m's screen and it gets really hot there (haven't touched the thing in a week because i have all my files off of it and a 'spare' inspiron 6400), but I haven't left it long enough to see if it will smoke.
     
    namaiki, Apr 8, 2009
    #3
  4. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

    Reputations:
    2,962
    Messages:
    8,231
    Likes Received:
    63
    Trophy Points:
    216
    Might be a dying inverter, a dying backlight, or, as you mentioned, some sort of wiring short. You can take the display off, take it apart, and see if anything looks out of the ordinary: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins6000/en/sm/display0.htm#wp1006390. You can even try powering up the display while it's out of the casing and see what's burning... this may or may not be dangerous.

    Ultimately you can try replacing the inverter or backlight, but the easiest and most surefire fix would be to replace the entire LCD assembly itself.
     
    Commander Wolf, Apr 8, 2009
    #4