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    Black screen on boot up. Any ideas?

    Discussion in 'HP' started by dth3dogg, Jan 5, 2008.

  1. dth3dogg

    dth3dogg Newbie

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    So I have an HP laptop dv9000 running Windows XP, and a few weeks ago, in an emergency situation (relatively speaking), I precariously set the laptop down on top of a dresser. I miscalculated, and the laptop fell to the ground, about 4 feet, landing on the carpeted floor. It sounded like a cinder block dropped on pavement when it hit. As you can imagine, I was pretty frustrated with myself.

    Upon inspection, I felt very fortunate. I only noticed some minor cosmetic damage. I ran some hardware tests, and everything seemed to be working properly. The laptop ran just fine until about 3 days ago. I would be working on the computer, and then randomly I'd get some patchy color patterns in some of my windows. I would reboot, and back to normal.

    Then a little later, My screen started flicking on and off. Like every 10 seconds, it would turn off, then back on. A reboot fixed it for about a day...then it did it some more.

    Finally yesterday, it flickered on and off, and finally stayed off. I rebooted, and nothing. Now, when I boot, I don't get any image on the screen. The LED lights on the computer turn on, the fan spins, the hard drive spins, and the screen "comes on", but it's just black. No cursor, no image/text. Nothing. I can't boot into safe mode, I can't get into BIOS, etc. I don't know what to do.

    I had been researching the screen flicker problem, and everything seemed to point to a bad inverter board, which is an easy fix, and the part is only like $50.

    The problem is, I tried connecting the laptop to an external monitor, and I got no image there either. If it were just a bad inverter (the part that supplies power to the LCD screen), the external monitor should have worked. So I'm thinking this might be more serious.

    Does anyone around here have any ideas? I hate to take this into Geek Squad and put it into the hands of some 18 year old noob, but I don't think I have many options left. Obviously, not under warranty anymore.
     
    dth3dogg, Jan 5, 2008
    #1
  2. timtravel42

    timtravel42 Notebook Virtuoso

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    did you try connecting it to an external monitor?
     
    timtravel42, Jan 5, 2008
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  3. andyasselin

    andyasselin Notebook Deity

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    also when you hook up extenrnal monitor you have to push the fn key plus f5 or the monitor key swithch external display
     
    andyasselin, Jan 5, 2008
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  4. dth3dogg

    dth3dogg Newbie

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    yes, that's what I tried. I got nothing.
     
    dth3dogg, Jan 5, 2008
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