[Lovltn848]

My friend has an HP Pavillion dv9000 entertainment laptop pc with Vista Home edition that's had a recent issue with the display. The laptop screen lights up, but doesn't display anything. He can connect a monitor to it and the display shows up on that monitor, but it looks very messed up, warped colors and misplaced pixels.

He did a system restore on it and that seemed to fix the problem, shut it down last night, rebooted this morning and it still worked, and then when he tried to turn it on tonight, it went back to the old problem again. We're guessing it may either be a bad driver or possibly the motherboard fried. He always shuts it down at night and unplugs it, but could this still be a result of overheating?

Last summer he had trouble with the nVidia card and took it to a computer repair place and they took the card out. He hasn't had any trouble with it until now. Even without the video card, does the computer have a display driver that could be causing this issue?

Thanks,
Loveltn848

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Um, the graphics in a laptop aren't upgradable so with all due respect I don't see how how anybody can take it out of the laptop without effectively writing it off.

[Neil Jones]

Um, the graphics in a laptop aren't upgradable so with all due respect I don't see how how anybody can take it out of the laptop without effectively writing it off.

[Lovltn848]

I have no idea, that's just what the computer repair man told him. He could have lied or something. The thing is that the computer still has nVidia drivers, so I kind of figured that you can't really have nVidia drivers without the card right?

[rshaffer61]

To replace a graphics chip on a laptop the shop would have to take the system apart. Unsolder the GPU chip and replace it with a new one.
It is a lot of work and in most cases very expensive to do. The other option would to put a new motherboard in the laptop. This again would be a very expensive repair.

[Lovltn848]

Yes we know that. I think the motherboard/graphics card really is fried. This series of HP laptops are notorious for this problem. I think he will have to look into getting a new laptop.

[rshaffer61]

I would say that is the best option at this point. You described the issue completely with using a external monitor and the issue still happened. If the HD is good I would take it out and put it away for safe keeping.
If your friend buys a external 2.5 inch enclosure then he can backup the data off that drive when he gets a new system.

[Lovltn848]

Okay I will tell him that. Thanks for your help.

[rshaffer61]

You are welcome and I'm sorry the news is not good for you or your friend.

[Lovltn848]

Yeah it's a bit difficult for him to get a new laptop at this point as he's from England and we both live in Japan right now so the electric plugs are different. It would also be very expensive for him to get one shipped here and he doesn't have the money for that. Our dorm has a computer lab on the first floor thankfully.