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#1
11-15-2012, 05:20 PM
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Flickering laptop screen
My brother owns this laptop. Went upstairs for like 30 seconds, game downstairs and the screen is flickering on and off. He may come up to my pad tomorrow to figure it out. Here's his computer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...683410129 Screen was turning on for three seconds of a time then turning off. Now according to him it won't power on at all. I find it hard to believe that his motherboard is shot. He took good care of this thing. Ideas?? Last edited by gonepostl; 11-16-2012 at 02:40 PM.. The frugal shopper is the survivor of a recession
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Multi-Quote| 11-15-2012, 05:20 PM | |
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#2
11-15-2012, 05:44 PM
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Maybe one of these:
-Video cable that connects the screen to the motherboard is loose or pinched. Can happen when the build quality sucks and as time goes by, opening and closing the lid from normal use can make it come loose or pinch the cable so badly that the screen stops working. Try opening the screen at various angles to see if the picture comes back when it's at certain angles. Might need to open it up and inspect it or pay someone to do it. -Video card overheating. Try letting it cool down and then try turning it on again. Might need a laptop cooler if this is the problem. -Video card simply going bad. -Or the screen itself is simply dying. It should still work if hooked up to external monitor if that's the case. -Video card drivers are corrupt? Try re-installing them. Kinda tricky when the screen isn't working though. |
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#3
11-15-2012, 07:00 PM
Even if it's just when he plugs the charger in. I mean, could it be that when he says that it won't power on, he actually means that Windows won't start? |
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#4
11-15-2012, 07:09 PM
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#5
11-16-2012, 06:35 AM
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The laptop video ribbon is easy to get to with newer computers like his right? Isn't it right under the keyboard? So here's my plan of attack. Re-insert the ribbon under the keyboard.
Here's a dissasembly video for his series of laptops. From what I see! The video cable is right under the keyboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f65ohS_ According to him the laptop won't even start up anymore though. He was too pissed off to talk to me about it. I tried to squeeze him from what little information he gave me. According to him it won't even power on. I suggested that he buy a refurb. HOpe he doesn't blame it on me. Might just be a blown transistor. Shiz like this happens. 
Last edited by gonepostl; 11-16-2012 at 07:32 AM.. |
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#6
11-16-2012, 07:48 AM
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As people have mentioned this happens a lot with shoddy video cable ribbons, they either become loose or they start to go from bending over and over.
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#7
11-16-2012, 09:06 AM
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Yeah, not hard to believe if his MB is shot. Nothing to do with it being a refurb (new machines have the same chance of failure) - but more to do with the fact that it's a cheap Gateway. How old is it?
Your plan is still a good one - disassemble, reseat everything you can see that has a connector, reassemble & see what happens. |
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#8
11-16-2012, 10:29 AM
  So I'm on that track now. Under the belief that it doesn't even power on. BEFORE, it wouldn't even power on the screen would turn on and off in 3 second intervals. THEN, it all of a sudden wouldn't turn on. Last edited by gonepostl; 11-16-2012 at 10:36 AM.. |
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#9
11-16-2012, 02:38 PM
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UPDATE:
So, it turns out that he was right. He confirmed it with me. It turns on for a second or two then shuts off. So it doesn't seem to be a display issue. Thinking about taking a multimeter to the power supply and psu but I don't own a multimeter! Ideas?? I don't think the mobo is shot or the power supply. Perhaps a little flakey. But if it was, the machine wouldn't even power on for two seconds. Heat in the computer creating too much heat due to lack of cpu and gpu goo and auto shutdown? It could be SO MANY THINGS! Where to start?! His "pro pc friends" say it's a broken processor. I'm dealing with hearsay from idiots that my brothers friends are feeding him and he's beliving this garbage! Making this harder!! If it was a cpu problem it wouldn't even power on for a second. Duh!! ***Worthy note: The screen was flickering. I'm pretty sure through our conversation that the display doesn't even pop up again now. So, the display was flickering on and off then after a little while with the screen flickering; a complete system shutdown. Now the display doesn't even pop up. Computer turns on for two seconds, fans spin up. Then a complete system shutdown. Sounds like a heating problem don't it?! Fans fire up. Lack of heat spreaders causes stuff to overheat and shut down. Seems legit? I dunno how to take this on. Last edited by gonepostl; 11-16-2012 at 02:57 PM.. |
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#10
11-17-2012, 07:06 PM
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Sounds like he needs a new screen, or [unlikely] a new inverter board.
simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
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#11
11-18-2012, 11:12 AM
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#12
11-18-2012, 12:10 PM
You could put your finger on a bare CPU (that you just turned on) for about 10 seconds before it would burn you, so there's no way that a shutdown in 2 or 3 seconds is heat related. |
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#13
11-18-2012, 01:07 PM
I'm just wondering why it's shutting down like that. I've never run into something like this before and my brother is really bummed. I want to fix this but I don't know where to start with this whole shutdown bullshit. |
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#14
11-18-2012, 01:30 PM
I've run into it several times over the years. The bottom line is this. A real technician that is schooled in electronics to the point of knowing how to read values, as well as having the equipment to do it, may be able to find some damaged components and change them, but we live in a modular world, and what you have as a symptom is generally referred to as the end of that machine, short of changing the mobo, which usually isn't worth doing. In the case of a recent model that was very expensive and you get lucky and find a good mobo replacement on ebay, then it may be worth doing, assuming you know someone who can do the job. 99% of the time, in the case of a laptop that just turns on then off again in 2 or 3 seconds, we remove the ram and the hard drive for future use, and put the laptop in my cemetery/warehouse. |
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#15
11-18-2012, 02:00 PM
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If you could find a service manual for the computer, that could be of some use (I looked and couldn't find one).
The first thing I'd try to do is to check the output voltage of the power adapter. This is limited in it's utility as a PSU under no load behaves differently than one under a load but better than nothing. This may also be impractical depending on it's design, a better option may be to try a different power adapter (or universal one from a local B&M store. It isn't hard to find a cheap multimeter locally that would be adequate (harbor freight, walmart, sears, lowes, home depot...) but look carefully at the power adapter connector to decide if you think you can test it's voltage safely. After that (if you're up to the job and you might not be), I would basically start to disassemble it and disconnect every non-essential component: hdd, optical drive, wifi card, bluetooth card, modem, remove all peripherals, battery (the rechargeable one that power the computer not the bios battery), and addon cards. Connect a sata to molex power adapter where the hdd was, connect multimeter to molex side set meter for about 20 Volts DC and try to turn the computer on again monitoring the voltage. Check to see if all fans spin briefly after you power on. If it does the same thing and the voltage at the molex connector was ok (test both 12 and 5v), then disconnect the display cable, inverter board, trackpad, and keyboard (provided the power button is separate) and try the same thing again connecting an external monitor and a usb keyboard. If it stays on longer, attempt to access the bios and see what the hardware logs show you. Some of these suggestions may be impractical or impossible depending on the design of the particular computer. Do not power it on with any fans or heat sinks disconnected. As an aside, I'd reserve the term flickering for turning on and off at a faster rate at least 5 Hz and the term blinking for anything slower than that. Last edited by jkee; 11-18-2012 at 05:18 PM.. |
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