[samzee71]

The LCD screen of my Compaq R3000 Laptop suddenly stopped working.

It was working fine. I installed a demo game for my son. Then the screen started displaying irregular patterns. I manually turnedoff the laptop by holding the Power button. Then after turning ON the laptop, nothing is being displayed on the screen. The screen is totally blank.

I connected the laptop to the external monitor. The computer boots and it displays the irregular patterns on the monitor.

Everything seems to be working ok except the display.

Any guidance to troubleshoot/fix this problem is highly appreciated. Please advise.

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hi, try booting up in safemode and choose safemode with vga options when the opps appear, then once on your computer go into desk.cpl and change the resolution to something else, and see is the driver is missing in device manager(devmgmt.msc) if there is a yellow blob any of the icons there it means you are missing a driver.

Sorry if the above sounds like greek I will longhand it if there is something you don't follow.

[fleamailman]

hi, try booting up in safemode and choose safemode with vga options when the opps appear, then once on your computer go into desk.cpl and change the resolution to something else, and see is the driver is missing in device manager(devmgmt.msc) if there is a yellow blob any of the icons there it means you are missing a driver.

Sorry if the above sounds like greek I will longhand it if there is something you don't follow.

[samzee71]

Thanks for the reply. The main problem is that I don't see anything on the screen. The laptop screen is totally blank. When I connected it to external monitor, it displayed all the irregular patterns.

I will try your suggestion by just following the sequence of keys, even if I don't see anything.

[fleamailman]

probably it is the video driver so hitting the F8 just after the bios screen should get you able to see the screen though not as well as normally, there one should get the safeboot with vga option going.

[w0lverine]

if it is showing the irregular patterns during boot, where you should normally be watching things load, than it is the video card itself, and not the drivers. the drivers will only cause problems like that once loaded into the OS.

its kinda hard to boot into safe mode when you can't even see the loading screens. ;-)

[fleamailman]

true you will know if it is the card's driver if one can see the bios load but after that it goes fuzzy, I am as yet hoping that the driver has gone and not something more serious, even without the screen one can still arrow down three times, press enter, then press enter, anyways if someone has a better idea

[w0lverine]

i have an idea, but it requires a 20lb mallet, 2 blocks of cement, a crane, and a keg of 1963 aged scotch whiskey. and a straw.

[samzee71]

Thanks alot for all the replies. I am currently at work and shall surely try all the different solutions you guys have suggested. Thanks again.

Now, assume that the driver is ok and there is some problem is the video card. Is it possible to replace the video card of the laptop? Are these onboard or these are the small add-on cards. Any ideas? I have the Compaq Pressario R3000. If these are add-on cards, then I can try buying from ebay and replace myself.

[fleamailman]

no it is unlikely to be video card, or at least not broken because of the demo game, also on a laptop the video cards are part of the motherboard. just another question but do you have a copy of the same flavour XP just in case it turns out to be something needing a repair with XPcd

[w0lverine]

they are onboard, and probably won't be very easy to replace. I have tried looking for laptop vid cards for my older laptop before, and I can barely find anything. I think i found one once that was a pull, but i just now checked where i found it and its gone. Unless your laptop is under warranty, don't look forward to being able to replace your laptops video card.

pray that it is the drivers.

[samzee71]

I tried the F8 option. I tried following the keys without display. But it didn't helped.

Then I took out the hard drive and turned ON the computer. I thought that if it is the driver problem, then on powering on the computer with the hard drive should give me some diaply from the BIOS. But nothing came on the screen.

I am feeling that there is some problem in the Video Card and my laptop is out of warranty.

Please advise if my trouble shooting is correct or can I ry something else.

[w0lverine]

you did perfectly. if it was a driver issue taking out the hard drive should have done the trick. it would still boot up in the bios, but it won't boot to the OS. so yeah, its your video card.

really sucks that thats the case, but at least you know now.

is it under warranty? dunno if you mentioned that.

[samzee71]

I have one more laptop. I exchanged the hard drives of both the computers. This hdd worked on the other laptop. But the other working hdd didn't worked on this laptop. Now I am sure that this is not the driver issue.

The computer seems to be working ok except the display. I was able to select the user and then shut down the computer with the keyboard selections, even if there was no display. This also indicates that there is no RAM problem.

My laptop is out of warranty. I will see if I can find a cheap working motherboard on ebay, or, if I can get this motherboards repaired. Else I will be on the lookout for the new laptop.

Thanks alot everyone for helping me in this problem. Please reply if anyone has anymore suggestions.

[fleamailman]

two last easy requests and then I will agree with your conclusion, can you try removing the battery and then booting from mains only(hoping that it is a mbr problem, but probably not) and can you try a linux live cd that is if you can still boot off the cdrom drive, but I think it is a gonna.

Edited by fleamailman, 09 August 2007 - 11:58 PM.

[Troy]

As it's a laptop, you won't be able to just get a hold of another motherboard and replace it or repair the original very easily, if at all. Even if you found one, it would most probably be too expensive.