Sager NP2090 blank screen. HELP!

Hello,

I have a Sager NP2090 which is about 3 years old. Out of warranty. It had a bad mobo the first year that I had it, and now I'm having more problems. Today I was using it and it was fine, but then I was away for a while and the laptop went to sleep. I pushed the power button to boot it up again, and then it just went to a blank screen. I turned it off and booted again and it wouldn't even give me a BIOS screen. The LCD seems to not be getting any power whatsoever. I've tried removing the battery and turning it on from the AC adapter only, and I get nothing. I've tried booting with only one stick of RAM, nothing. I've tried connecting to an external monitor and switching display modes, nothing.

The symptoms are virtually identical to what it did the first time when the mobo fried on me. I press power, the fan whirs up, the HDD icon flashes for a little bit, then stops. Nothing else happens. So, I'm thinking that the problem is either a dead mobo or a dead gpu. It seem unlikely, but could there be some sort of loose connection to the LCD screen inside that I could check? I read in another thread that someone with an NP2090 was having similar symptoms after they pressed on the casing near the power button, and I recall that I also did the same thing just before this happened to my laptop. Does anyone happen to know if there is a connection there that might have come loose, and if so, how to fix it?

I assume that because I'm out of warrenty, if there is a hardware failure, then it's going to be pretty expensive to get it fixed, right? Does anyone have any experience in this area?

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Update: Apparently my computer is still functional, but there is definitely something wrong with the display. If I turn on my computer and let it start up and sit for a while, and turn on the Wifi switch, I can see it on the network and view it's shared files. So, that's all fine. Not a mobo problem, at least. Now, what possible causes could there be for the screen not starting up? And, if there was a problem of a loose lcd screen cable or something, would that cause the laptop to be unable to switch to external displays? I tried switching to external displays again; still no luck. So, any guidance?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

The Compal FL90 aka Sager NP 2090 uses that cursed 8600M GT. It's most likely that the GPU just died on you, that's why switching to an external display is not possible. It might be worth upgrading to a new laptop, but if you don't have the money right now you can replace the GPU yourself, it's fairly easy. You can get a MR HD 3650 with GDDR3 memory it will perform somewhat better than your original 8600M GT which only has DDR2 memory. You can get information about upgrading your GPU in the Compal forum here and on this site.

 

It could also be the inverter(which is an easy and inexpensive fix for most laptops). To check if it's the backlight or the inverter you need to look very closely at the screen and see if you can see a very and I mean VERY faint image. If you are a bit more confident, you can take the screen's backplate off and shine a light behind the panel and see if there is an image.
Other possibilities of course are GPU and the cable between the LCD panel to the motherboard.

 

Thanks guys. A few questions to clarify:

So, if I can tell that there's a very faint image on the screen and that the backlight is simply out, then I need to replace the inverter?

Are the 8600mgt cards known to fail?
Is the 2090 MXM?
Is it really that simple to replace the graphics card? I saw someone say you have to completely disassemble the laptop. How much would a new mxm card cost, exactly? And is there a good place to buy them, or should I just look on ebay?

Daniel, you replaced your 8600mGT card. Is it plug and play, or do I need to update bios and such?

Thanks for the replies.

 

If there is a faint image of what should be on the screen, ie. Windows logo, desktop backgroud, etc., then I would start with the inverter. It may also be the panel itself (burnt backlight) but it's less likely. You can also be 99% sure the graphic card is in good shape.
If I remember correctly it is not an MXM slot in there. At the very least the whole bottom panel has to be removed to get to the video card, and this pretty much implies taking apart most of the laptop. You will have to find the same card that is in the unit now.
Let's hope it's the inverter

 

Nope, there's no faint image on the screen at all. And apparently these 8600mgts have a tendency to die? And there is an MXM slot on this laptop.

At this point, since my laptop is as old as it is, I might just upgrade, since even if I were to manage to fix this, something else might break in the near future...