t400 - windows 7 - black screen after windows splash - radeon hd 3400 problem?

machine was working fine forever. couple months ago starting getting overheating issues when gaming and was able to fix the computer enough for it to not force shutdown but not enough to get the temps to a stable level.

jump ahead to the other day. havent gamed in a couple months but anyway comp was going black after the windows splash screen like the screen just turned off completely, not a backlight problem. safe mode booted fine.

decided to do a clean install since its been a while. radeon hd 3400 cannot start in device manager. when I run driver updates and it gets to the ati driver the entire screen goes black and I have to system restore to before the driver installation via safe mode.

I went into bios and switchable graphics and discrete give this issue. If I go to integrated then I do not get the issue when updating drivers, probably because the machine doesn't try to install ati drivers because I have integrated selected in the bios.

is the card fried or something? when i go to discrete right off the bat it will load, install ati driver, and then tell me to restart and then I get the black screen.

thanks for any input.

 

Could bethe GPU detaching from the planar. A very common problem on the T400 with switchable GPU.

 

Do you have an external monitor you can hook up to the VGA port? If video out still works when the discrete GPU is enabled, the GPU is probably fine.

 

Not necessarily.

There are two separate outputs from the GPU: analog for VGA and digital for LCD. One can work perfectly fine while the other channel is dead.

OP, that does sound like a graphics card problem, and a hardware-related one at that.

I've got no wisdom to offer at this point apart from a suggestion along the lines of using the integrated graphics only until you can afford a planar swap or a new laptop altogether.

Good luck.

 

ill try hooking it up to external tomorrow. also I get a blue screen once and a while complaining about the video card/driver. this happens sometimes instead of the black screen.

how much is a planar swap? i have maxed out ram and ssd in this machine so not really something I want to give up on. I have a t420 also but this machine is still hella fast even four years after I purchased it.

 

pci system error on bus is the error I get when I enable discrete. hooked up the external monitor and got a blue screen after the windows splash the first time. second time I got a black screen but with the backlight. when booting however everything was very grainy until the blue screen of course. screen was so grainy I couldnt read the error message.

with integrated the external booted properly.

on switchable no grainyness and no pci error and the machine boots normally. I have the second option in the menu turned off. for switchable when I go to display properties in windows it says its using the integrated graphics and the external monitor boots properly. the radeon still says cannot start. the switchable graphics update is NOT available in system update while on integrated the update is not available. likewise in windows update the updated ati driver becomes available while it is not present when integrated is selected.

P.S. just saw that planar means motherboard. probably not the type of repair I want/am comfortable with doing. also looks like it would cost me a few hundred bucks which isn't worth it imo.

 

ran the switchable update with both screens hooked up and both went black