I had some free time tonight so I decided to tinker with my fried laptop.
It's an inspiron 1420 (piece of fucking shit) with an integrated nvidia 8400 graphics card.
Last spring the display died. Ran a beep diagnostic and it indicated lcd failure, so I replaced the screen. Nothing.
It has to be the graphics card.
It turns on, but the screen stays black blah blah.
Anyways, I have a few questions.
I'd like to connect it to an external monitor just to make sure, but I'm not sure exactly how to go through with it.
I've got just a regular pc lcd external monitor sitting here.
Cords I need? Which hookups? etc.
I'm way out of my element here and I know there's some very technology literate people flying around here.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the dumb questions.
To hook it up to a monitor, all you need is a monitor with a VGA input, and then when you turn the computer on, look at the keyboard for the Fn key and look for 'CRT/LCD' in blue on one of the F keys. hocuspocus;
Alright I'm getting a visual, but I'm getting start-up repair now.
I'm kind of thinking It's not going to go anywhere after this.
*UPDATE*
It's fucking up to an extreme level when it passes startup repair, but I'm starting to get these quick flickers when I hit the function/lcd thing. It got to the point where I could read the intel logo on the screen, but there was no backlight so it was almost invisible.
When that happens, there's a split second audible buzz and it switches back to the external monitor.
Any ideas what might be happening?
I'm having people tell me it could be a fucked hard drive preventing windows from booting. Confirm/deny.
Sorry for the dub posting, but now that I started fucking with this again, I"m interested to see what needs to be done.
Quote from: Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow on November 12, 2009, 04:02:23 AM
I'm having people tell me it could be a fucked hard drive preventing windows from booting. Confirm/deny.
Sorry for the dub posting, but now that I started fucking with this again, I"m interested to see what needs to be done.
I dunno, why don't you just back up your HDD and re-install Windows? Then you could get all your shit back from the backup you would've made.
If you're not getting past bios, then wouldn't the bios settings be fucked up, implying that you need a new motherboard?
Why are you bothering fixing this? I have an old crappy laptop that I thought would be cool to install ubuntu onto. Haven't touched it since.
Quote from: Alyssa the Glowing Sole on November 27, 2009, 12:03:17 PM
If you're not getting past bios, then wouldn't the bios settings be fucked up, implying that you need a new motherboard?
Getting past bios? Do you mean the post screen?
BIOS = basic input output system
POST = power on self test
btw has op tried running a live cd? If the live cd works then he doesn't need a new mobo then he could back up his hdd and he can reformat the hdd yes or no
sorry for crappy post I'm on my iPod