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.

    Strange 8600 screen problem

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by rc251, Jul 14, 2008.

  1. rc251

    rc251 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I'm having an odd problem with a Dell 8600. During use, occasionally the screen will turn black. That is, not totally black, as you can still see a faint image of what's happening on the desktop. I've found that I can fix this problem by pressing the little button above the keyboard that normally gets activated when you close the screen. However, once the screen goes blank once, it seems to start happening every 5 minutes, and the only solution is to restart the computer. Once restarted, it can go a long time without any issues, but once the screen goes blank it starts happening often.

    I thought maybe it was an issue with that button, so I went to the power options and switched the setting to "Do nothing" when the screen is closed. However, the issue is still occurring. Does anyone have a solution?
     
  2. rc251

    rc251 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    One more piece of info... Occasionally, when I try to start the computer, it appears to turn on but the screen stays blank no matter how many times I restart. However, when I plug a CRT monitor into the computer, the display turns on, and after I hit FN+F8 to make sure the display is only on the laptop, the laptop will work for a while. However, after a few days, it still has this problem. It seems like some of these issues have to do with the VGA port, but I still can't figure out what's causing all these screen issues. Any suggestions?
     
  3. mgh_a1

    mgh_a1 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    28
    Messages:
    516
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My best guess is that you may have a loose / bad connection between the video adapter and the screen. If you are under warranty I think you should ask for a fix. If you aren't, then you could try to check the connection yourself by digging up the keyboard and checking / reconnecting anything in there that looks loose.