[cfordg57]

Manufacture : Compaq
>Model : 18XL380
>Specification : WinXP Pro 320M RAM

>Description : Started having issues while reading mail that the ATI
>Mobility AGP 2X driver had stopped responding and that I needed to
>restart. After a restart it would work again. Issue kept getting worse
>and eventually on the POST it present the 2 long and 1 short (I think)
>which I found indicated a problem witht the graphics card which seemed
>to make sense. Not wanting to put a lot of money into this laptop as it
>is about 5 years old I looked on Ebay for a used replacement mainboard.
>I found one cheap and installed it but the problem reappeared. So now I
>am trying to figure out whether the used board I got also had a bad
>graphics chip or it is something else. When I boot up screen on the
>laptop is just black but you can just see a faint outline of the
>"Compaq" logo and then goes to the Windows XP logo again very faint..
>once it passes this point though it is just completely black. So next I
>tried to hookup my external monitor to it and the first time I powered
>up after it had been off for overnight it came up to the desktop before
>going black. I seems like it gets worse after heating up for just a
>couple minutes. Now if I boot from a boot floppy disk with no real
>graphics, it will show on the external monitor only but half the
>text is missing.
>Is it ready for the parts bin or can anyone confirm either the board or lcd?

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Well the faint image sounds like either a bad backlight or a bad invertor.... however the fact that it goes away with an external monitor I'd say it sounds like the video on the motherboard... though it could be the processor is overheating.... when you changed the board did you change the processor? did you reapply heatsink compound? Is the fan working?

[shard92]

Well the faint image sounds like either a bad backlight or a bad invertor.... however the fact that it goes away with an external monitor I'd say it sounds like the video on the motherboard... though it could be the processor is overheating.... when you changed the board did you change the processor? did you reapply heatsink compound? Is the fan working?

[cfordg57]

I did remove the processor and reused it on the new motherboard. I did not use heatsink compound. Does this type of clamp down processor (P3 600mhz) use heatsink? Anyway, it would seem that it would itinitally boot up and load windows for a few minutes at least even without heatsink or the fan running would it not?

Even with the external monitor it was not working so I have to figure that it can not be the lcd screen that is causing the problems.. I figured it had to be the video card on the motherboard.. it just was surprising when I installed the new (used) motherboard and got the same results.

[shard92]

I did remove the processor and reused it on the new motherboard. I did not use heatsink compound. Does this type of clamp down processor (P3 600mhz) use heatsink? Anyway, it would seem that it would itinitally boot up and load windows for a few minutes at least even without heatsink or the fan running would it not?

Even with the external monitor it was not working so I have to figure that it can not be the lcd screen that is causing the problems.. I figured it had to be the video card on the motherboard.. it just was surprising when I installed the new (used) motherboard and got the same results.

yes that processor should have some kind of heatsink+ compound. possibly a heatpipe which is what they use now. Not sure I understand the second part of the first paragraph... if you are asking about overheating it takes more time to blink then it does for a cpu to burn out.... was there compound on it when you took it off? was there a fan nearby?

yeah with it not displaying to the external monitor either that says something else ( motherboard/cpu/memory most likely ) is the problem.