Laptop won't display ANYTHING...

I recently purchased a new E1705. Its been working fine, but all of a sudden the display appears to have stopped working. I turn it on, and I can see the screen flicker for a second (you can tell the backlight is on) but I don't see it running through the bios, I don't see the vista start screen, I see nothing but black. Any idea what the problem is? Its just very difficult to identify the problem when I can't SEE anything. I also hooked up an external CRT and nothing would display on there either.

 

Sounds more serious than just a display issue if you cannot run the notebook through an external LCD. Are you sure that you cannot get a signal on your external LCD? Try using Fn+FX (X=3-5, depending your notebook) to force the output through your VGA port.

 

It could be a bad graphics card or something with the motherboard. My laptop's motherboard is dying as well spookyu. I feel your pain.
Tim

 

Its not my laptop actually, its my cousins, he just got it. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, it happened when we tried to overclock it. It was a REALLLY minor OC too, I had done the same thing to my rig (which is very similar to his). It worked too, there wasn't ANY problems, but next time we went to turn it on it just wouldn't dispaly anything. I just talked to dell support (didn't tell dell that OCing was involved) and they are going to service it. So everything should work out (as long as they fix the thing). Dell support really does have no idea what they are doing though. They were trying to tell me its a memory problem. I know **** well it isn't, the graphics card or the mobo went bad, I've seen this before. We're trying to get to dell customer support now to see if we can get free stuff for all of our trouble, but they have us on hold (those bastards are tough to crack, but we'll win, ill make em cry).

 

I understand the feeling. I did a minor OC to 430/430 (which is below "standard" any way), from default 425/378 for my X1600 and when I tried to load the classic SOFII, the laptop froze on me. Screen went black. Restart and it would freeze as soon as it reached the XP loading screen. Thankfully I could use safe mode and undo my meddling

 

You broke the laptop and you expect free stuff?

 

You are right on, zx10guy. Spookyu, you expect Dell to take the blame for your overclocking?

 

maybe they shudda shopped at Costco instead?


::snickersnicker::::runnnnnnssss::

 

LOL.

 

You overclocked your new laptop, it isn't working now, and you expect Dell to fix it for free. Okay....

 

Try reading what I say next time, I never mentioned that I OCed it to dell, so they won't know the difference (I had the commands memorized for setting it back to stock clock settings so I'm pretty sure I got it back to stock settings just by blindly entering the commands, but I doubt they will realize it either way). Plus, we did end up getting a free camera for our troubles. In all honesty I don't think the computer was right to begin with. Artifacts would show up all of the time even though the temps were fine, and it would bsod pretty often. The OC was probably just the straw that broke the camels back, it was screwy to begin with. Either way, that MINOR OC shouldn't have screwed the computer up like that, its not like I didn't know what I was doing either, but what dell doesn't know won't hurt them.

I'm sorry if I'm short, but it bugs me when people hear "overclocking" and "problem" in the sentence then they jump all over the person like they are a moron. It was a freak accident of some sort, while the OC did have something to do with it I'm sure, something had to be wrong to begin with. Just think things through a little.

 

The problem was, "dude you got a Dell".

 

If you look at Intel's warranty verbage, OC'ing a processor would fall into modifying the processor to operate outside of the published specs for that processor:

Here's Dell's verbage:

I would think what you did would fall under the bolded items. I don't care if you OC any of your stuff. But don't expect the rest of us to pick up the tab for your mistake. And to add insult to injury, you got consideration from Dell for a problem that you caused. If you think the OC'ing you did was so minor, why not just come out and tell them on the phone what you did? Why all the secrecy? The fact that you feel compelled to hide this fact from Dell speaks to the fact that you know it would void the warranty.

 

When did I ask for anyone to pick up my tab? I was asking for advice to remedy my situation, not "what did I do wrong in the first place?" Of course I know it voids the warranty. Just as a side note, I'm speaking for my cousin who asked me to do this for him on HIS laptop (and I DID explicitly warn him what could happen). Ohh, and I overclocked the graphics card, please read what I write. I'm just getting tired of the condescending attitude I get from people in situations like this. I'm sure you are guilty of doing something stupid like this as well, and yes I admit it was stupid (unnecessary is the term I used to my cousin, who still persisted I do it). Ohh! I "beat the system" by ignoring part of a warranty and getting his computer fixed anyway, and detective gadget here thinks I've got a guilty conscious because of that. Please, we both know that part should not have failed like that, regardless of that absolutely minor OC and the warranty. I'm sorry if I'm bitter to any of you, but between dells tech support taking 2 hours for them to realize that if it could be fixed by "troubleshooting" I would have had it fixed and the comments I'm getting, well I'm just not in a good mood. Not looking to make enemies, I'm just in a bad mood, forgive me.

 

chill guys. spookyu asked for help, and the purpose of this forum is to assist people with their problems regardless of it being their fault or not. let's keep the insults to ourselves.

 

Yah come on, the spooky's just asking for some advice, no need to rub it in.

 

I know you OC'd the GPU. And yes I read the part where you did this on your cousin's laptop. I included the Intel part as many people also overclock the CPU. You first asked what it could be, then you already went with going to Dell to get the laptop warranteed. Fine, go ahead and get Dell to warranty it even though it's still dishonest that you made no mention that you OC'd the GPU. But to squeeze out a freebie because Dell wasn't responsive to something you did? Give me a break. That's where it sent me over the edge. For me, I would have been happy that Dell is going to do anything for me despite what I did in breaking the laptop. You can rationalize all day and spin it anyway you want but in the end, you did something that resulted in breaking the laptop. Period. I'm willing to bet that the GPU would be fine and working today, tomorrow, a year from now, whatever, had it not been for the OC. There is this thing called production variances and tolerances. That is why any OC done to any CPU/GPU is at the owner's risk. And to ask for a freebie on top of getting a free warranty repair that as I pointed out can fall into one of the exclusion categories takes some nerve. Because in the end, I (and anyone who owns a Dell) just paid for your freebie and warranty repair. And for those that think I'm rubbing it in, you all should be upset for the exact the reasons I've outlined.

It's not just me who sees this situation for what it is as evidenced by some other people's responses. I made my point and I'm done.

 

I don't see where I insulted spookyu. There have been other threads that had posters calling out unethical and/or illegal behavior. Why is this thread any different?

 

i edited spookyu's post for an insult, and i was just giving out a general warning just in case it gets out of hand....doesn't matter b/c the issue has been taken care of, so i will go ahead and close this thread before there are anymore problems.