Page 2 - Dell laptop - screen goes black - help!

Thanks for joining in! Hope folks can get some help from ya! Hang out & join in elsewhere - there's a lot happening around here!!

Yes, please do stick around...I was only joking.

He indeed was joking

You mean we've had people here with working Dell's?

Must have been asleep...

i actually got my computer fixed when i called dell services. we couldn't find out what happened to it, but by trying a few different things the screen came back on and i havent had any problems with it since then.

I'm glad it worked out for you, but a lucky tweak doesn't constitute a solution in my book.

Jill,

I have the exact same laptop as you, and what seems to be the same problem. Mine isn't even a month old yet, and when I put it in standby one time and tried to bring it out of standby, it went dead. Ever since i've been trying to turn it on, but the battery light is the only thing that comes on.

I have however gotten in to turn on twice out of luck, but I don't like relying on luck for it to turn on. What did you do with Dell on the phone to fix it? Because I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with them and nothing really got solved, it just turned on by a stroke of luck.

I have a Dell D810 laptop with ATI Mobility Radeon X600 video, and have had intermittent problems with the LCD going black after the Windows splash screen for 5 months. Last week it started dying on me while I was using it (went into sleep mode, then LCD black). An external monitor will work, and the LCD will work in safe mode. Dell came out and replaced the motherboard, video card, and LCD screen, and played around swapping memory cards - no fix. They then tried installing new video drivers, which totally hosed the computer, so I did a restore. The Dell tech said it was a corrupted software driver, and told me to format and re-image my hard drive. I swapped hard drives with an associate's D810 and proved to Dell it IS a HARDWARE problem (my hard dribe works perfectly in other PC; my PC has dead LCD with his hard drive). Dell is sending me a new laptop.

Oh, the tech also told me that there is a 50% failure rate on the Hitachi 60gb hard drives. They will replace it under warrany IF it fails. So, if you have a Hitachi HD, better do a drive image to DVDs or a portable HD!

An update on mine, I convinced dell to send it to a service center to fix it. It took them a day to put a new motherboard in and ship it back. I think they have a playbook for this now because it's been a widespread problem. But it was on their end for sure.

Hey, thanks for that update. Glad you got that sorted out.

hello all... i'v been reading the posts on this thread cuz i was doin some research for the complete headache that is my dell inspiron 5100. I'm having VERY similar problems as the rest of you... but not exactly... let me explain.

The laptop doesnt boot up everytime, the screen flickers for like a sec and then blackness. sometimes however it come on just fine and boots up no problem.... until however i touch the laptop or move it.

Since i'v been repairing PC's for a living now for about 3 years now, i decided to make this my personal project. i took this thing apart screw by tiny screw.. EVERYTHING! until all i had left was the motherboard, bottom panel, and LCD hanging beside the unit with just the cable connecting to the mobo... and here is what i found.

movement is whats causing the problem, specifically the botom left hand corner. everything is running fine until i "LIGHTLY" tap (barely touch) that area... either the dvdrom casing or even the outside plastic case where the speaker is located. i tried touch everyother part of the laptop with the same force and everything is fine until i reach that sweet spot. i moved around the lcd cable , pressed down on the lcd cover and nothing happens, also i tried unpluggin the speackers from the mobo and that did nothing either, i took out everything else, wireless dvd. hard drive, etc..

my problem does not seem to be overheating, invertor, or lcd short... but it does seem to be a short somewhere but i cant for the life of me figure out where.. i'm close , but not close enough.

anyone have any ideas, or hear of anything like this before??

sorry for the long post.. i figured i'd make a big entrance into the forums.

thanks in advance for any help.

Hi everyone

It seems i have the exact same problem, i have a dell 5150 apart on my desk at the moment, it does the same thing as soon as you touch it, the thing just goes nuts.
I have just the bare minimum at the moment the board and the power switch, so i have taken off the screen, keyboard and mouse, and i still have the same problem, it will boot up sometimes then go off, however i did get it to boot up and stay on, that was good but the only way i could turn it off was buy removing the battery.
Anyway i am still trying, I have emailed Mike B the Dell man, and just waiting on a response,
I am welcome to any suggestions guys

Regards dr0679

Hi, I'm the IT guy for my unit that's deployed here in Kuwait, and I deal with a lot of different laptops that have some issues like this (the Army loves to buy the cheapest equipment when it comes to PC's or just about anything else). Hopefully this will help you guys out.

Ok, for the main topic (screen goes black, but you can see what's going on if you hook up an external monitor), your problem lies in the back of your monitor screen. To reduce the width of the screen, most of the connections use "sheet" wires. With all of the laptops i've been working on, Inspirion 9300's (and Latitude 110L's, but those are older) have an issue with the wires becoming loose. Another symptom that can happen, but not always does, is the screen going black, but a white halo forming on the edges of the screen. First off, if you have a warranty, get an RMA and send that back to get the monitor replaced. If you don't, then crack open your laptop, take the monitor off, open the monitor casing, and re-seat the connections on all of the wires and clean out the casing. (If you don't know how to open your laptop, there are plenty of tutorials around on how to do that, i'm not going to repeat what a whole bunch of people have written about better than i could.) Just before you close everything up, power it on, and make sure it worked, because you might have to "fine tune" the seating of the wires.

Ok, for the second thing, (computer starts booting, but will shut off immediately), there are several things that could be going wrong, the first and foremost possibility being a short. I've got a Latitude D810 that's got that problem in my office right now. The short for that one is in the grounding sleeve of the A/C power connection. If i unplug the A/C adapter from the laptop, and then plug it in once I'm at the Windows XP loading splash, I'll have no problem. Hopefully that helps.

Hey, Nabeshein, nice addition. Thanks for the great input. Welcome to DevH.

Hi guys,

I had quite the same prob with my kiddy DELL X200 lappy today: the screen turned off after the boot (5 secs after).
It was a hardware prob for me.
I proceeded as follows:

- I screwed down the two plastics parts embrasing the LCD layer
- There, a small round magnet embrasing a copper spiral was broken
- I brazed the magnet fragments and placed the whole magnet back

... and it works fine now.
So... IT guys only we are? Not at all, sometimes humble electricians too!
Interesting stuff... this magnet fuse!

'Hope this is helpful for u.
I'll stop by your nice forum again.
Best regs,

Amaury Beaumont
Brussels, Belgium