One Month Old DV9700T Screen Just Went Out

So I've had my computer one month and last night my computer was doing great. No problems.

I just went to turn it on and now the screen is completely out. Totally black and gave me no indication that anything was going out over the past month.

Hooked the laptop up to my desktop monitor and that works but the laptop screen is just dead, dead, dead.

I was looking to see if there was a little pin stuck down or something that switches the screen on when the lid is opened but I can't seem to see anything.

Is there such a thing that I can check without having to open it? I don't want to touch the inside since it's under warranty.



Edited with an update:

Okay, this is very strange! With the desktop monitor hooked up, I went in and had the laptop restart. It did and showed my HP Invent screen and then the boot screen. And that was it.

Never showed my Vista desktop. Just black.

Since it showed the HP Invent screen for the first time in the hour I've been trying to get it to come on (where you can get into the bios and all), I went through the desktop monitor and had it restart again.

Then I unhooked the desktop monitor and while it was restarting and the laptop screen magically came to life upon the restart.

This is the first time I've ever hooked up an external monitor so I know it wasn't anything weird with that.

What on earth caused this problem? And, I guess more importantly, is this worth sending it in for a repair or did something just get stuck? I tried moving the lid back and forth, opening and closing it. Nothing worked until I hooked it up to the desktop monitor. I haven't made any changes to the system except for undervolting but I don't even have my RMClock settings set to where it comes on automatically. I manually open RMClock and turn on the undervolt every time. Haven't installed anything new.

 

tilt the screen all the way forward and see if you can see anything.

 

Take out your HDD (so you don't lose your data, also tell them you aren't sending in the HDD with the laptop) and send the laptop back to HP to fix under warranty, because honestly, would you rather put in a temporary fix if possible, or have it fixed the right way?

 

This might sound dumb, but did you hit Fn+F8(or F7, I'm used to Dells) and turn off the screen?

Also, try tapping F8 on boot and choosing to boot Windows in VGA mode.

Greg

 

I think you misunderstood his statement, the LCD screen doesn't turn on at all, this isn't a OS problem, it's a hardware problem.

 

just did the same thing or close to it...my backlight wouldn't turn back on, till i shut it down unplugged power and took battery out. replaced and it came back on. i was messing with the over clocking of the gpu when this happened

 

rtrdogs: theres this laptop glitch with the battery, just hope this is your problem

1) Pop your battery out and unplug AC power
2) Hold your power button for over 30seconds
3) ONLY plug in the AC power.
4) Try starting it again

If this fails, im guessing its probably your gpu

 

Ugh flipfire. Not the dreaded GPU.

The screen came back on for several hours and I burned some DVDs to give it something to do. No problems.

Then a screen saver message came up that said, "The screen saver can't run because it requires a newer video card or one that's compatible with Direct3D."

I just use the Vista bubbles and it's been working fine too.

So I was headed into the Device Manager to see what happened and Poof. black screen before the UAC could come up.

I had to hold the power button just to get it to turn off. I tried plugging it into the desktop monitor first but it was a no-go.

Rebooted and the screen came back on but the screen saver message was still there. I figured that means it's just a matter of time before the black screen makes another appearance. So I rolled my system back before a Windows Update that installed a couple of days ago and right now everything's okay.

Screensaver's working, no black screen (yet).

Oddly enough, flipfire, when this first happened, the battery wasn't even in the laptop. It was just on AC power. So I'm not real happy with what that probably means for my situation!

 

How long has it been stable for now?

Lets just hope this is only a software/drive issue. Hardware issues is bad to hear specially from a 1 month old machine

What drivers were you using when the above happenend?

 

I only did the restore about an hour ago so no time at all on being stable really. I'm playing a game and then switching to desktop to see if it's going to black screen on me. Nothing yet but all I did was a restore so I'm not hopeful...especially since I had zero changes to the system in the last couple of days and when I went to bed last night, I turned off the computer like usual and it was fine.

The driver I was using was the one off the HP site. I put it on when I did the clean install right after I got the laptop (so about a month ago).

After I started getting the black screen, I uninstalled the driver and tried to install the LaptopVideo2Go v 169.09. It said it installed correctly but no change on the screen saver message and then my device manager was just showing "standard vga" and not an 8600m GS. I re-read the instructions for installing the driver and I did it correctly so I don't know what that was about.

That's when I decided to restore the system and take it from there.

I'd say fingers crossed but that would jinx it for sure.

 

Back again with another update. Ran the computer for several hours last night, going in and out of games, using the Internet, etc. and no problems.

This A.M., go to turn it on, black screen. I plug it into the desktop monitor and the picture is there. Still nothing on the laptop screen, though.

If it was the GPU would it still be able to show the desktop on the external monitor? It's not having any trouble with the external monitor at all.

Also, this A.M., I didn't get the HP Invent screen at all on the laptop screen. It's almost like it's not getting power because as far as I can tell, it's not showing any sort of backlight. It looks just like it does when the laptop is off.

When it works, there's no flicker. There's been no indication that something is wrong. No little blinks or anything.

Thursday night it was working great and I had no reason to suspect anything. Friday I turn it on and nothing but blackness. Today, so far, I can't even get it to where I had it before last night where it seemed to be working fine again.

I've opened the lid, shut it, tilted the screen at all angles. It doesn't come to life. It didn't do that yesterday either.

In the dark here, so-to-speak.

Edited with an update:

I just did another system restore and the laptop screen miraculously came back to laptop. However, the external monitor is plugged in and it completely bypassed that like it's not even there.

As a total guess, it's almost like it thinks the external monitor is plugged in when the screen is black, even though I never used this monitor until yesterday when the laptop screen started having problems.

Any ideas what this is all about? Hardware or software since the system restore is bringing it back to life? I don't get it. Grr...

 

Well if it works perfectly with an external monitor then GPU is probably fine and just the LCD harness/wiring or something. Any chance youve disabled the laptop screen? (not even sure if this possible). Double check the nvidia control panel

Call up HP and see what course action they suggest. Looks like a hardware issue from here

 

Nevermind....

 

Shut down, closed the lid, rebooted, black screen.

All black and then desktop magically appears when it gets to that loading point. Sent it into hybernation, closed the lid, opened and started it back up, got my fingerprint logon screen, swiped my finger, it acted like it was loading the desktop but all I was seeing was black.

I'll call HP after my kid's Easter egg hunt this morning. I can't believe I'm having, yet another, problem with this series.

 

Funny that I just happen to see this.

My dv9500t has been running super until 2 weeks ago ..all over sudden the lcd was blank (black) everything else sounded fine.

I called HP service and the tech told me (after batterie take out etc.. if I use an external monitor it would boot up..which it did...but like yours the laptop display never came to life again.

HP send me overnight a prepaid box & return label.

the interesting thing is the tech knew to quick about the lcd...they must have problems with it..bit time.

Also when I filled put the repair form I had 20 options the 2nd was "Display is black"

According to that it must be common.

So off to HP service Center and if by any chance you have YOURself made any upgrads like ram or hd...send the laptop back only in it's original configuration. I forgot to put "their HP ram" back in it and got a call from an outsourced repair service center to buy HP otherwise the would NOT do the repair.

So I waiting for the return!


Good luck

 

Thanks a ton for the info pgifish. When did you send yours in and what's their return ETA? Did they say what exactly they would be doing to fix it?

 

don't think it's the lcd...i have a different one in mine and it did it twice. im thinking it's something to do with turning on the inverter. because i didn't change the inverter, just the screen.

 

My dad's vaio has a similar problem. We didn't do anything about this, because he just ended up buying a new laptop. I think the best thing would be to send it back.

The weird thing is that after a year or so we turned it back on, and the screen was working again, but only for a limited time.

The best thing to do would be to call HP, and ask for a repair.

 

Yep, sure enough. Just like pgifish, the tech knew right away what I was talking about. Didn't even have me try to fix it on this end. He immediately said he would set up a service order.

So I'm getting a pre-paid box sent here. Joy. I guess that's what warranties are for but too bad I'm on my 33rd day of ownership! (32nd day when the problem started.)

 

Thats a shame for HP. Did the techie say what the exact issue was?

 

I did ask but he didn't say. He just gave a very vague answer about the tech having to diagnose it when it arrived at the repair center.

Just out of my complete paranoia, you don't think I did anything to it with undervolting do you? I don't mean that I did something wrong in testing but just that my voltages were coming in so low like they were.

I hope it's just an odd coincidence that I had just undervolted it a few days prior. I've just been wracking my brain trying to figure out what could've caused this since it gave zero warning that something was wrong.

 

I highly doubt it, its not just you that had the issues. HP seems to know about it aswell. Unless everyone has been undervolting i wouldnt think so at all..

 

So is this a common issue, like the wireless problem with the earlier Pavilions, or just an isolated case? I had a problem like this twice, but I pulled out the battery and waited a few minutes, and it worked fine again. Since I don't use the battery on a regular basis, I guess I just haven't encountered the problem since then because of that.

 

Good luck with your repair. I'm on day #38 and still waiting for my laptop to come back. They claim I'll have it back Monday, but it still hasn't shipped. I won't hold my breath. At least they promised to replace it if I don't get it on Monday (only after emails to CEO and other hp departments).

Still, I'll never buy another HP again. Hardware failures are expected, but not their horrendous repair times.

 

I'd also like to know if it's a common issue. I just ordered this laptop and it should be here tomorrow or tuesday (I'm getting it late, go figure). I'd hate to already be in doubt of it before I even have it....

Do all users who have the 9700t expierence this problem?

 

just found out something about this....
i was messing with video drivers and my screen started to act stupid. so i hit fn+f7 to dim the screen and it shut off.(meaning the screen went dark and i had to use an external to see) it did this many of times. thought i was going to have to put the laptop back to factory and send it in for repair, but found an easier fix, at least for me. i shut down the laptop, took out battery and removed cmos battery. once i put it all back, everything worked fine. no more screen shut off.

 

You don't even need to remove the CMOS battery, just the main battery, I think.

 

nah, been trying that for the past 2 hours.. it would only reset it till i hit the fn f7 twice...then screen would shut off again. the dimming function was disable.

 

Well, when my issue started, it was on AC power and the battery wasn't even in the laptop.

johnksss, where's the CMOS battery located?

clarrkkent, oh geez. That's great news. If they keep my laptop 38 days like yours that will be longer than I've even owned the freakin' thing! Keep us posted on when you get yours back. What was wrong with it?

worshipleader, to be honest, I'm really kicking myself and thinking I should've abandoned my 15+ year loyalty to HP when I bought a computer in early Dec., returned it because of a bad DVD drive, bought another one to replace it in late Dec. and had to send it back because of a problem with the LCD (backlight going out on it and dead pixels showing up within one week of having it). So I waited early this year and checked out other computers, had a Dell in my shopping cart on their Web site and then a $500 off coupon came from HP. Now I feel like a dolt because I should've known better. I wouldn't think that all HP DV9700T owners are having this problem because you would see a lot of posts here since this series came out in mid-Dec and it's basically the DV9500T with a few minor changes. So don't worry. Chances are, you'll be fine with your purchase. I've just had a string of bad luck...I hope it's just me anyway.

 

Please tell me where I can't find the CMOS pin setting ???????

 

rtrdogs

Do yourself a favor before you send your laptop back restored it to the original in case you have upgraded anything. I would also take the 2nd hard drive in case you have personal data on it.

Mine reads on hp status website it was shipped Friday . BUT I know it has not! I had not even worked on Friday...!

I wish could build my own laptop..! I have been building my own desktops for 10 years!

HP was good once..

 

Did that and did not work..

 

just pop the cmos battery out from within the memory compartment.

 

pgifish, thanks for confirming what I was thinking. The tech said it would be subject to a system restore so I figure why not do it anyway and get my personal info completely off of it. I hardly have anything on my second drive so I'll just wipe it and start over when it comes back.

Thanks also for the tip on putting the factory memory back in. I never would've thought about that and I did upgrade the memory the minute it arrived a month ago. I even put the factory memory back in hoping it would miraculously solve the problem but, of course, it didn't. I'm the eternal optimist darn it!

 

say rt, did you try the cmos battery solution?

 

John,

Was just taking a picture for you so I could ask a question. I didn't realize the CMOS battery would be on the underside. I thought I might have to crack open the laptop and tear it apart so I was glad to see your message.

Is this my CMOS battery? It's not underneath my memory modules but it is in the memory modules panel, if that makes sense.

How do I get it out? It's pretty snug in there.

ETA: Also, do I need to save any BIOS settings before taking it out or anything else like that that might prevent it from starting up?

 

yep, that's it.

just use a very small flat head screwdriver and pop it out.

nope, your bios will be fine. just boot into cmos and set the time. so your os doesn't get to acting funny.

 

Okay, because I'm stupid, what is boot into CMOS to set the time mean? Is that just hitting F10 to go directly into the BIOS?

I'm sorry to be so naive. It's a real curse. I'll tear my desktop apart all day long but I'm scared of my laptop. Ugh.

 

yep, f10.


no problem. i was the same way a few years back.

 

say rt, what is your 8600m gs card factory settings set to?

mine is 500/400/1000 = gpu/memory/shader

 

How do I check the card's factory settings? I'll bet you feel like you're teaching a remedial computing class!

Also, am I looking at voiding the manufacturer's warranty if I take that battery out? Is it soldered to the motherboard? I haven't had a chance to do it just yet. My one year old had other plans for me.

 

nope on the class! lol

nope, battery is detachable and it wont void the warranty....unless you send it in for repair and forget to put it back...lol

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

to see what your video card really is

 

johnkss



did it work?

 

did what work?

if you mean my blanking out screen... yes.

 

Sorry about that. Had to entertain my child for a while.

But a big bummer over here. Removing the CMOS battery didn't work. I've rebooted the sucker 8 times and it's black as night. It's weird, though, because it's doing as before. It will be black and then I'll reboot, nothing, reboot, nothing, and just at a time when I'm randomly rebooting trying to get it to work, it will reboot just fine and turn on the screen as if nothing's wrong.

 

Just got the notebook back

replace mobo lcd cable

BUT THE Latch TO CLOSE DOES NOT WORK

BACK IT GOES!

 

pgifish, from the time you sent it to them to the time you got it back, how many days did it take?

Also, are you saying the latch doesn't close? How could they miss that? Good grief!

ETA: And how is it cosmetically? One of the things I'm worried about the most is that they're going to scratch my 'baby' to pieces like they did on my old laptop.

 

rtrdogs

it took 14 days!

latch does not lock

cosmetically??? Looks like they ate lunch on it on metal dust on the lcd...& full of greasy finger prints...

before i cleaned the lcd I blew the metal dust of with a ear pump and then wet a small corner of a very smooth microfiber cloth wiped it lightly over the lcd and dried it gentle with the dry corner of the cloth.

mine be of to repair in 2 days again.

 

Just any HP ram would work? just for my own info because I upgraded to 4g then sold my 2 gigs to a friend but I still have his 2-512 sticks from his hp

 

pgifish, now I'm terrified. I haven't even removed the plastic film from the top yet because I was trying to protect it before my skinit came in. It just sounds like they treat the laptops horribly. My old one came back with these deep scratches in the lid for a DVD burner repair.

I'm just sick over this situation. I did the math and I started having trouble on day 32 -- just 11 days after my 21 day return period expired.