problem The display of a 6 year old Compaq laptop remains black upon start or restart

[apairofpcs]

Today, I'll be helping a damsel in distress who's pretty knowledgeable with the workings of her 6 year old Compaq Presario laptop. The unit has a 160GB HDD and 1GB of memory, and is running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 32 bit. This OS was installed when she bought it. No matter what method we used to arrive at the desktop, the display remained black. The one time we were able to see the desktop, was when we pressed the F10 key to stop the power button from flashing after a fresh start with the AC adapter. I had her remove the battery pack to eliminate unnecessary hardware. With every start, whether from shutdown or restart, the power button would flash continuously. Pressing the F10 key stopped the flashing and made the desktop appear.....BUT ONLY ONE TIME! I don't remember if it was a single press, a double press or repeated presses.When she was a Verzon DSL customer. the problem started without warning. Since then she's had Verizon FiOS service installed, but hasn't been able to use it due to the black display. The one time we saw the desktop, we attempted to find the wireless connection transmitted by the Verizon ActionTec modem/router, in System Tray, A message appeared that there were no wireless connections available. We went into Device Manager and saw that the nVidia Network Controller under Network Connections, was working properly. This was encouraging. Right above this Network Adapter entry was the nVidia Display Adapter, under Display Adapter. There was a yellow triangle with a black exclamation point within it, next to the entry. Instead of attending to the display adapter problem STAT, I asked her to restart. That was a mistake that my experience with pcs should not have allowed me to make. With all of our restarts and F10 key actions that followed, the display remained black. The only thing pressing the F10 key accomplished, was to stop the power button from flashing. Owning a Lenovo Thinkpad T530 laptop, I know that when the power button flashes it's in sleep mode. This is what I think is happening with the Compaq. The F10 key "appears" to awaken it, but the display is malfunctioning. I'm sure that if I used my grey matter and attended to the display adapter warning before anything else, I would have been able to solve the problem via a driver reinstall or update. As for the wireless connection mishap, the damsel noticed that the wireless adapter on/off switch was in the off position. This seems to explain the "no wireless connections are available" message. I should have checked the switch's position myself when the message appeared..

So today, she'll lend me the laptop to work on, for as long as it takes me to get the desktop to be visible every time. If all goes well and the laptop looks like it has some life left in it, I'm going to suggest that she either buys a 1GB or 2GB memory module.. I'm sure the modules are DDR2, which are more expensive now than DDR3 modules. It's hard to determine when it makes no sense to sink money into an old pc, but I'll do my best as if it's MY pc.

Other than finding out what key will get me into the Boot Configuration Menu so I can enter Safe Mode, and what key will get me into CMOS Setup, what advice can anybody give me to handle the display problem? I'll be reading the laptop's User's Guide on the HP website, once I have it in my possession.

 

[Stereodude]

What happens if you plug an external monitor into it?

The display itself could have failed, the backlight for the display could be dead, or there could be some software setting that causes it to simply not to output and image to the screen. You should still see the BIOS screen in the latter case though.

 

[Bozo]

See if you can into the BIOS. This is just to see if the screen is functional.

 

[apairofpcs]

What happens if you plug an external monitor into it?

The display itself could have failed, the backlight for the display could be dead, or there could be some software setting that causes it to simply not to output and image to the screen. You should still see the BIOS screen in the latter case though.

Good idea. I'll try to enter BIOS first. If the display still remains black, I'll attach my 22" Acer P223w monitor to the proper port.

Note that the display worked once yesterday, which probably signifies that it's not a total loss.

 

[apairofpcs]

See if you can into the BIOS. This is just to see if the screen is functional.

This is going to be my first order of business when it's in my hands. The damsel doesn't know what is BIOS setup, so I know she never tweaked any of it's settings. I'm hoping that I'll have the ability to get the display working just one more time, so I can deal with the error symbol near the display adapter entry. This would be the ideal outcome.

 

[sdbardwick]

#1 cause of sudden laptop display vanishing is accidentally hitting the Fn+Function key that toggles output to external display.

 

[apairofpcs]

#1 cause of sudden laptop display vanishing is accidentally hitting the Fn+Function key that toggles output to external display.

I went through the twelve F keys when I was at the damsel's place. But I forgot that an F key pressed with the Fn key delivers more options than the F keys alone. I have the laptop at my place now, and I'll find out which Fn + F key controls the selection of the display, internal or external. Recall the warning symbol in Device Manager, which I don't believe would reflect a wrong choice via the Fn + F key. Based on the warning, I'm pretty sure there's a driver issue.

 

[Howell]

Even so, the bios splash screen should show even if the display has been redirected. If the back light has burned out you should still be able to make out some graphics if you look carefully.
If you remove the driver completely in safe mode you should get back basic video functionality.

 

[apairofpcs]

Even so, the bios splash screen should show even if the display has been redirected. If the back light has burned out you should still be able to make out some graphics if you look carefully.
If you remove the driver completely in safe mode you should get back basic video functionality.

No BIOS splash screen seen. Even with me adjusting brightness tio max., I didn't see anything. How can I remove the driver or do anything else visual, when the display is pitch black all of the time?

Here are the steps I've taken on the advice of members of different forums, with none of them solving the problem:

• Turned off pc with power button. Removed power cable. Held in power button for a minute to remove residual charge. Reattached power cable. Pressed power button to start. Display still black.
• Turned off pc with power button. Removed power cable. Removed hard drive and two memory modules. Attached power cable. Pressed power button to start. No error message appeared, as was suggested there would be. Display still black.
• Turned off pc with power button. Turned on pc with power button. Held the F10 key for a minute or so to access the BIOS setup page. It never appeared. Display still black.
• Inserted a DVD of Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS into optical drive.. Turned off pc with power button. Turned on pc with power button. DVD was spinning with light flashing. Power button light turned off then back on. I left the DVD in the drive for about ten minutes, with it spinning, hoping that the display would come on via Microsoft generic display drivers. The power button light on/ off cycle repeated a few times. Display still black.
• I attached a VGA to VGA D-connector from my Acer monitor to the laptop, applying the suggestion above to see if the display or something else was faulty. If you recall, just connecting an external monitor to a laptop will not automatically display the laptop's screen contents on the external monitor, because one must go to Control Panel, Display, Adjust display properties to have the external monitor detected. When this is done, both monitors can be configured to display the same or different information. With a black display, I can't do anything whatsoever.

It appears that many owners of this laptop have the same problem. Some solved it by replacing the motherboard, the video card or the network adapter. Based on what I've read and what I've tried, to no avail, I'm no longer feeling warm and fuzzy about solving the problem without telling the damsel that she must spend big bucks on a six year old pc. All in all, I may be spinning my wheels.

For the record, this laptop is beautifully made in terms of aesthetics and human engineering. The hard drive and memory modules were a breeze to remove and reinstall. The screws on each panel were captive within each panel, so I didn't have to keep track of the whereabouts of the screws.

Any "new" ideas?

 

[sdbardwick]

No BIOS splash screen seen. Even with me adjusting brightness tio max., I didn't see anything. How can I remove the driver or do anything else visual, when the display is pitch black all of the time?

If the just the backlight of the LCD gave out, there is still a very faint image visible on the screen; slightly lighter black on darker black. Shining an external light on the screen can sometimes help visibility. You probably won't be able to read the image, but you will be able to tell it is present. If present, then you know the video system isn't totally borked.

• I attached a VGA to VGA D-connector from my Acer monitor to the laptop, applying the suggestion above to see if the display or something else was faulty. If you recall, just connecting an external monitor to a laptop will not automatically display the laptop's screen contents on the external monitor, because one must go to Control Panel, Display, Adjust display properties to have the external monitor detected. When this is done, both monitors can be configured to display the same or different information. With a black display, I can't do anything whatsoever.

That is what the Fn+Function key switch is for, as it works at a sub-OS (and on at least one of my old laptops, sub-BIOS) level; once switched to external display only, it showed BIOS boot screen on the external display only. Note that the Fn+Function key switch might have several states depending on the number of video ouputs (VGA, S-Video, composite) and it might try to direct the output to each exclusively in turn.

I'd turn the laptop off, attach the external monitor, wait for the monitor to go into power standby, turn on the laptop, and hit the Fn combo every 5 seconds for a while to see if the external monitor at least goes out of standby or any image (black on darker black or regular) shows up on the internal LCD.

 

[apairofpcs]

If the just the backlight of the LCD gave out, there is still a very faint image visible on the screen; slightly lighter black on darker black. Shining an external light on the screen can sometimes help visibility. You probably won't be able to read the image, but you will be able to tell it is present. If present, then you know the video system isn't totally borked.


That is what the Fn+Function key switch is for, as it works at a sub-OS (and on at least one of my old laptops, sub-BIOS) level; once switched to external display only, it showed BIOS boot screen on the external display only. Note that the Fn+Function key switch might have several states depending on the number of video ouputs (VGA, S-Video, composite) and it might try to direct the output to each exclusively in turn.

I'd turn the laptop off, attach the external monitor, wait for the monitor to go into power standby, turn on the laptop, and hit the Fn combo every 5 seconds for a while to see if the external monitor at least goes out of standby or any image (black on darker black or regular) shows up on the internal LCD.

Good experiments, but both failed. Shining a bright flashlight on the laptop's display as it booted, showed nothing. Toggling between video outputs pressing the Fn+F4 key every five seconds, didn't take the external monitor out of power standby mode. ( power standby = amber light, power on = blue light )

Next.....

 

[apairofpcs]

As a result of toggling between video outputs on my Toshiba laptop using the same external monitor, I realize that I wasn't proceeding properly when doing this with the Compaq laptop. The video outputs were visible on the Toshiba's display, since it works, and I saw that as I went from one video output to another via the Fn + F5 key combo, sometimes the Toshiba was the only display that was on, sometimes the Acer was the only display that was on and sometimes both displays were on.

So I emulated the exact steps with the Compaq and monitor, keeping the same timing. Well, none of the video outputs available on the Compaq turned on the Acer display, meaning that there was no video signal going from the Compaq to the Acer. The Acer monitor's amber light stayed on throughout the procedure.

Now that I've added some new information, what should be my next step?

 

[Stereodude]

Buy a new laptop cause that one is dead.

 

[apairofpcs]

Buy a new laptop cause that one is dead.

I'm about to tell the damsel your advice, which I believe to be sound. I've been reading a lot on this model, and the nVidia GPU has a fatal flaw that HP knew about from the beginning. They refuse to take care of their customers, asking steep prices for repairs.

If there were other problems with this laptop with a display that functioned, I know that I'd be able to fix them. I'm relentless when a computer challenges me. It's sad to have to give up on a beautifully constructed piece of machinery.

 

[Howell]

I had the exact problem with an hp model. That gpu gets hot enough to desolder the ball grid array.

 

[apairofpcs]

I had the exact problem with an hp model. That gpu gets hot enough to de-solder the ball grid array.

I'll be returning the laptop to the damsel today, having given it "the old college try" to fix it. Luckily, she has a desktop pc to rely upon.

Thank you all for you suggestions.

 

[Newtun]

I hope the lady has a backup of the laptop's data.

If not, or if she wants to rescue/re-purpose the laptop drive, does anyone here have any recommendations for external laptop-drive enclosures?

 

[Mercutio]

Yes.