White screen

Hi,

In December 07 my Compaq Presario V2414NR with XP SP2 started to transition to a white screen shortly after start up. Only way to shut down was a ruthless power down with the power button

HP recommended that I do a total wipe of the disk and a reinstall of the OS. This seemed to solve the problem

Two days ago the white screen came back (on power up screen looks OK but after 3 or 4 minutes it will gradually go white). On one occasion the screen went to blue with white vertical lines.

yesterday I booted in straight safe mode and I am not having the white screen problem but from time to time the system will freeze (100% CPU use) and eventually the safe mode intro message box reappears. Then all will be well for a while

Question is, what might the problem be? A reversion to the previous restore point did not fix the problem

I just know I am going to have to reinstall the OS again

Thanks,
prs

 

I've never seen a white screen, but this is my guess. I'm thinking you either don't have any anti-virus, anti-spyware programs or you don't run them. My bet would be on one of the programs you get or pages you visit also gives you some virus and possibly spyware (though I don't think spyware would cause this, I'm leaning towards virus). I'd run a couple anti-virus and anti-spyware scans to make sure.

 

I believe I've heard of this "white screeen" issue before. It is most likely the graphics card causing the issue. It is possibly overheating due to bad heatsink connection or another thermal disspersion problem.

It could also be a bad graphics driver, especially if it works in Safe Mode. Try downloading a new graphics driver while in Safe Mode.

If that doesn't work, and your laptop is under warranty, I'd send it in or get it replaced.

 

jin07,

Thanks for your reply

I run the Zone Alarm Security Suite behind a router. The ant-virus and anti-spyware functions are updated and run at least daily

So viruses and spyware should not be the problem.

Thanks,
prs

 

Always run a secondary scanner. Often times it will be able to pick up something the other scanner missed. Since you already have one scanner, you should pick up Avira and run a scan with it. I don't know much about Zone labs's antivirus to know how effective it is. AV comparatives doesn't have anything on it either.

Grabbing all of the latest drivers like ttupa mentioned isn't a bad idea either.

 

Actually, it might be a BIOS update. The latest BIOS is from 2006, but if your version does not match the one on the site below, I'd update it. There should be instructions there.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=1130611&lang=en

 

I'd keep in mind it could be a somewhat loose LCD cable, maybe not properly attached to the mobo. If you are able to open up your laptop (without voiding your warranty) it's worth checking out.
If it were the inverter you'd have a black screen I'd suppose.

 

Only reason why I don't think that is the case is because he can boot-up into safe mode and have it work. Well until it freezes. The 100% CPU usage is also why I think it's something like a virus and/or spyware of some kind.

By the way, to the OP, if you can, run a boot-up virus scan. I just thought that this might be better since safe mode isn't stable.

 

I'm 90% certain it's hardware related. Just do a Google search for "HP white screen" and there are thousands of hits with similar issues. Probably overheating graphics.

When I worked in repair, I heard about this issue often. I don't recall the solution, but it should be out there. One of either the graphics drivers, graphics card, or BIOS updates will most likely fix this one.

 

what does it say in the event log

 

Hello everyone!

Again thanks for your help

v3loc1ty2.0 - where does one find the event log?

The system is getting more fragile - today I was not been able to boot into safe mode - while loading the Owner's settings the screen went white - then it happened again

Now this is amazing. I booted from a Knoppix 3.6 live disk and the system was stable for about 12 hours. I downloaded Knoppix 5.1 but, while the md5sum is good, i can not get a clean iso burn on my PC even when using Nero 7 at 4x speed - of course because I am on a live disk I can not burn it on my laptop - i wanted to run f-prot from linux to be sure that Zone Alarm had not missed viruses or spyware.

It seems, since Knoppix is stable, that I may have a driver problem.

Before I do an oem re install of XP SP2 from the HP CD, I should have SP3 in hand - I heard that it was to be released on Apr 29 - was it? Or has the date changed again? Google is not helping me get that info

I also thought that it might be interesting to try the latest Ubuntu on this laptop - has anyone tried it on an HP Compaq V2414NR?

Thanks again for you comments and help,

prs

 

Hi again!

Another question

Someone mentioned using a virus scanner that would run on boot.

Is there a scanner/software package that will boot from a CD/DVD and automagically run a scanner? My system is so unstable that i can not do it from XP and the version of the KNoppix Live CD (3.6) does not have the F-Prot scanner on board?

Thanks,

Prs