PLEASE HELP P-7801u owner getting a white screen.

Hi All,

I purchased a P-7801u about 2 weeks ago from newegg. I installed dox's nvidia drivers and had undervolted it using the great guides posted here. It has been running stable for about a week now but I had logged onto WoW last night and went afk for about 10 mins. When I got back, I had a black screen with vertical blue lines on it. I restarted my computer and now I get a white screen that "scrolls" different shades of horizontal white lines downward on the screen. I can hear the Vista startup sound but just a white screen. Is my GPU hosed? Or is there something that can be done? I'm in desperate times financially and this is all I have so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

could be a loose LCD connector, if you remove the two screws under the battery and then pry very gently up on the "hinge" covers for the monitor you can pop the media buttons and power button bar out and it's right under there. Other than that possibility I'd say its hosed. An easy check is if you have access to an external monitor try hooking up to that, if you get a picture your GPU is probably fine, no picture get an RMA #.

 

Thanks so much for your help Mike. Yea I just tried an external monitor and I don't get any picture. So this is covered under warranty right? Noob question, where do I get an RMA#?

 

Since you bought it less than 30 days ago you may be able to get the replacement from Newegg, though they deactivated this notebook the other day and may not have a replacement to give you. If that's the case you'll need to contact gateway tech support and go through the rigmarole with them and they should set you up to get a new one sent out and send the old one back. I'd imagine if you have a credit card with enough room to spare you can get an "advanced replacement" sent first before you send yours back. I'd call newegg first though just in case, they tend to have better customer service.

Edit: Neweggs policy can be found here http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/ReturnPolicy.aspx#6
Gateway's tech # is 866-539-3901 or see this page http://support.gateway.com/support/ask_gateway.aspx?cmpid=topnav

 

Will do, I'll let you know how it goes. Do you know if newegg and/or gateway forces users to pay for shipping? Or is that also covered?. Thanks again for all your help.

 

They might, though I'd calmly raise some heck if they do since the thing isn't even a month old.

 

Try a "restore".

 

Well this has turned out to be a disaster. Newegg sent me the return shipping label no problem. But it turns out it was for standard UPS ground and it took 6 business days for them to receive it. When I asked them about it they told me they were sorry but it would be 3 more weeks for them to repair/replace it but they wanted me to know that they will ship it back next day air (yea...grrreeaat). Has anyone had to have a laptop replaced from newegg? Cuz this is ridiculous that their normal return policy is over a month long to replace one. I probably should have just contacted Gateway directly and had them ship a replacement in advance and temporarily charge my credit card.

 

Ouch, I never noticed this but apparently in the T's and C's it does say they have the option to repair or replace. That's what I meant about them not having stock being a concern though too, did they not tell you they didn't have a replacement and it would be repaired when you got the RMA? If not I'd call them back and raise hell that you were expecting the industry standard brand new replacement. Normally if they have brand new ones you get a brand new one. That unit had a major issue (needs a motherboard replacement) so I'm not surprised a repair job on it will take forever. If they didn't specifically say it'll be repaired I'd crawl all over them and tell them you would have sent it to g-way if you had known that and taken an advance replacement and just generally (without flipping your lid) read them the riot act politely.

 

Aight, so I raised a sh*t storm with newegg and they offered to give me a full refund and credit me with next day shipping if i purchased the same or another laptop from them. Unfortunately, like you said Mike, it's deactivated. The person I spoke with said that they would contact the warehouse and see if they can expedite the process in replacing it from the manufacturer, and then email me with their response (fat chance). Should l wait a couple days to see if they expedite the process? Or just take the refund and spend $100+ dollars more to get the one off Tigerdirect?

 

Hmm, tough call. I'd at least give them until later today (Friday) to work something out, if you don't hear back by say 3 PST I'd call again. If they can't do better I might think about calling TD and say "look I got this for 1199 at newegg, got a defective one but they don't have any more, I'll buy one today if you match that price" and see what they say. If they go for it you can just take your refund.

 

Good call Mike. At this point I'm think of just taking the refund and getting something else. Nothing out there really matches the specs for the price though. We'll see now it goes.