Laptop Won't display

Hi I have a Clevo D900C. There are actually two problems going on.

First I was just playing a game like normal, the display got all weird and I got a BSOD with error 0x00000024 (The hard drive one) I restarted and was going to run chkdsk /r but could not boot into windows.

I used my USB linux boot to check if there were any other problems that it would find which it found none (The display was working fine at this point. I did this first to see if I had a tool to check the hard drive which I did not since I do not have my CDs for vista, at least I can't find them.

I made a Vista 64 recovery CD on our crappy desktop. I booted up the problem machine and went into the bios to change the boot order so I could boot from the cd to do a recovery. (it was originally set to USB -> HD -> CD)
so I had to move CD up. I did that, restarted the computer, and I could not see anything. The computer powers up, including the LCD (It's just black but on), and is running the bios I just cant see it. I know since there is a password set at that level so if I enter the password when I figure the prompt is up the computer starts to boot up the rest of the way until it BSODs again I assume although I can't see it.

Things I've checked:

Ram was seated properly, I even switched them between the ports there. no change

Hard Drive is having an issue but seems to be unrelated since I was able to load into linux before I messed with the boot sequence.

Graphics card - Took this out and switched video ports to no effect left it out to see if the computer recognized it had no gaphics card which it did. So the computer knows the graphics card is there when I put it back

Fans are working I can even Fn+1 to put them at full speed so temp is not an issue.

My Theories:

Bad MoBo - I hope not since this motherboard is like $500 and if that's the problem it has to be replaced.

BIOS is screwed up - I hope this is the case since all I would have to do is reset it by taking out the CMOS battery from the MoBo to reset it. The problem is I can't find the CMOS battery to take it out, deplete it, or replace it.

Any ideas? Anything I could be missing? Does anyone know how to deplete a CMOS on a Clevo D900C?

 

Shouldn't the CMOS just be reset by taking it out and leaving it out for ten minutes or so? And it should look like a small rectangular or round silver battery thing, about the size of the average fingernail.

 

Yeah, what you describe is what I've been looking for. Just can't find it

 

Have you tried shining a light onto the LCD to see if there's anything there? If your inverter/backlight is gone, there should still be a very dim image there. Otherwise, try hooking it up to an external monitor before you boot and see if you get anything on the external. You may also want to see if you can get a mod to move this to the Sager/Clevo subforum, the people there may be more knowledgeable about exactly what you'd need, along with having such wonderful things as service manuals.

 

I apologize for not posting that I did try to put it on my desktop's monitor to no avail.

I downloaded the manual for this particular model and all it says about depleting the cmos is contact the people I bought it from, which I did, and they said to send it in and pay us to fix it.

 

Mm. I don't know enough about the D900C to know if a bad HDD might keep it from even getting to POST. I know they've mentioned in the Sager/Clevo forum that a bad video card in a D901C will, but no mention of the HDD. It's also a little odd that this only happened after you changed the boot order. Does the same problem still happen if you try to use the USB linux boot again?

 

after I changed the boot order it will no longer display, so booting into linux would be moot since I wouldn't see what I was doing anyway =/

I thought it was odd too about just changing boot order then no display that's why I suspect bios problems. Just gotta find that cmos I think.