SiliconSlick
2006-07-13 18:17:27 UTC
Howdy,
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I had a problem like
this and just discovered a fix (for my particular situation)
[or so I thought... the fix just went to hell...].
In December of 2005, a few days before the warranty expired,
I suddenly had a problem where my LCD appeared to no longer work
and I had to hook up an external monitor. I made a note to
look at the problem and call HP while I still had time, but
it was another week or so before I had a chance. By the time I called
them, they informed me I was out of warranty. Furthermore, they
said since the problem was the LCD, and since the warranty doesn't
cover "cracked displays" (whatever that means) anyway, that it
would cost me $400 just for them to look at the problem.
Obviously, I was a bit unhappy with HP.... $2500 for a system that
lasted a year and another $400 (at least) for them to even look at
it... and it wasn't clear to me that the display was "cracked"
since it seemed the backlight of the LCD would illuminate as I cycled
through the different available outputs when hitting Fn-F4. However,
it would never put an image on the screen.
I ended up opening it up and disassembling it, but never found
anything that looked obviously wrong. Not being completely
familiar with LCDs and their control circuits, I gave up on
a hardware approach.
At some point, while booting the dark side (Windows X POS
[piece 'o... ]), I wandered into some diagnostics from HP...
either installed on the hard drive or at the web site.
Not sure which however because during the course of my testing,
I managed to get an image to show on the LCD and having achieved
that immediately booted Linux to see if my problem was solved...
it wasn't. I tried to find the diagnostic again, but never had
much luck, so ended up accepting (for the moment) that my laptop
was non-mobile... that is, unless I wanted to haul a separate
LCD monitor around with me (which I did on occasion).
Note that I had this problem whether I booted Linux or Windows.
No matter which I booted, and the number of times I hit
Fn-F4, I still got no image... just the turning on/off of
the LCD backlight.
So... my laptop has been sitting here in my office running
Linux happily but for the fact that it needs an external
monitor. In a way, it was good because it got me off the
couch in the living room, which is where I had done all my
work the previous year after purchasing my laptop, back
into my home office.
Which brings me to today. I decided to boot the dark side
to make sure I was up to date with Windows Updates, HP updates,
and antiviral goodies. While doing so, I was about to download
an update the BIOS in hopes that a good flashing might reset whatever
bits might be causing the problem. Before doing so, however,
I noticed some diagnostics at HPs site and ran them on my adapter
and display.
Lo and behold, I had an image on my LCD again!!!
With renewed hope, I went in search of trying to figure out how
to make it work all the time. My first boots were unsuccessful and
each ended in me having to reconnect the monitor to see what
was going on.
But there was hope... I had seen that it worked (hardware AOK) and
was determined to find out what bit of software was screwing things
up.
Since both times I had seen an image on my LCD was while in Windows,
I decided to start my investigation there.
During the course of that I discovered that at one point, I had decided
to play with the dual monitor display provided by the NVIDIA driver
(v6.14.10.4716... not sure if that was Microsoft's or NVIDIA's at this
point... still investigating).
I set it to single monitor mode and rebooted and Voila!, there was the
LCD display on boot and into Linux.
Wanting to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I rebooted a few times and
powered it down for a bit. On power up I still had Success!!!
Or so it seemed...
Waiting a bit more and rebooting again and...
Shit!
No display.
So... back into Windows...
Sure enough... going back to the display control panel I was back
in "multiple monitor" mode again. Switched back to "plug and play
monitor" (the only other option) and rebooted.
Hmmm.... well... back to the drawing board...
BUT AT LEAST I KNOW IT ISN'T HARDWARE... so I'm glad I saved
my $400... fat lot of help HP was... they wouldn't even look
at it without a deposit. Next time I want an AMD laptop
I'll go to Acer.
No more time for now, but I'll try to provide an update when
I find the magical combination of BIOS/driver/monitor settings
to keep the LCD working... something about the diagnostic
makes it do something that ends up getting reset. With no
help from HP, I'll have to muddle along myself. But at least
there's hope for my $2500 paperweight.
SiliconSlick
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I had a problem like
this and just discovered a fix (for my particular situation)
[or so I thought... the fix just went to hell...].
In December of 2005, a few days before the warranty expired,
I suddenly had a problem where my LCD appeared to no longer work
and I had to hook up an external monitor. I made a note to
look at the problem and call HP while I still had time, but
it was another week or so before I had a chance. By the time I called
them, they informed me I was out of warranty. Furthermore, they
said since the problem was the LCD, and since the warranty doesn't
cover "cracked displays" (whatever that means) anyway, that it
would cost me $400 just for them to look at the problem.
Obviously, I was a bit unhappy with HP.... $2500 for a system that
lasted a year and another $400 (at least) for them to even look at
it... and it wasn't clear to me that the display was "cracked"
since it seemed the backlight of the LCD would illuminate as I cycled
through the different available outputs when hitting Fn-F4. However,
it would never put an image on the screen.
I ended up opening it up and disassembling it, but never found
anything that looked obviously wrong. Not being completely
familiar with LCDs and their control circuits, I gave up on
a hardware approach.
At some point, while booting the dark side (Windows X POS
[piece 'o... ]), I wandered into some diagnostics from HP...
either installed on the hard drive or at the web site.
Not sure which however because during the course of my testing,
I managed to get an image to show on the LCD and having achieved
that immediately booted Linux to see if my problem was solved...
it wasn't. I tried to find the diagnostic again, but never had
much luck, so ended up accepting (for the moment) that my laptop
was non-mobile... that is, unless I wanted to haul a separate
LCD monitor around with me (which I did on occasion).
Note that I had this problem whether I booted Linux or Windows.
No matter which I booted, and the number of times I hit
Fn-F4, I still got no image... just the turning on/off of
the LCD backlight.
So... my laptop has been sitting here in my office running
Linux happily but for the fact that it needs an external
monitor. In a way, it was good because it got me off the
couch in the living room, which is where I had done all my
work the previous year after purchasing my laptop, back
into my home office.
Which brings me to today. I decided to boot the dark side
to make sure I was up to date with Windows Updates, HP updates,
and antiviral goodies. While doing so, I was about to download
an update the BIOS in hopes that a good flashing might reset whatever
bits might be causing the problem. Before doing so, however,
I noticed some diagnostics at HPs site and ran them on my adapter
and display.
Lo and behold, I had an image on my LCD again!!!
With renewed hope, I went in search of trying to figure out how
to make it work all the time. My first boots were unsuccessful and
each ended in me having to reconnect the monitor to see what
was going on.
But there was hope... I had seen that it worked (hardware AOK) and
was determined to find out what bit of software was screwing things
up.
Since both times I had seen an image on my LCD was while in Windows,
I decided to start my investigation there.
During the course of that I discovered that at one point, I had decided
to play with the dual monitor display provided by the NVIDIA driver
(v6.14.10.4716... not sure if that was Microsoft's or NVIDIA's at this
point... still investigating).
I set it to single monitor mode and rebooted and Voila!, there was the
LCD display on boot and into Linux.
Wanting to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I rebooted a few times and
powered it down for a bit. On power up I still had Success!!!
Or so it seemed...
Waiting a bit more and rebooting again and...
Shit!
No display.
So... back into Windows...
Sure enough... going back to the display control panel I was back
in "multiple monitor" mode again. Switched back to "plug and play
monitor" (the only other option) and rebooted.
Hmmm.... well... back to the drawing board...
BUT AT LEAST I KNOW IT ISN'T HARDWARE... so I'm glad I saved
my $400... fat lot of help HP was... they wouldn't even look
at it without a deposit. Next time I want an AMD laptop
I'll go to Acer.
No more time for now, but I'll try to provide an update when
I find the magical combination of BIOS/driver/monitor settings
to keep the LCD working... something about the diagnostic
makes it do something that ends up getting reset. With no
help from HP, I'll have to muddle along myself. But at least
there's hope for my $2500 paperweight.
SiliconSlick
Hello,
Has anyone here experienced a problem where the R3000 stops displaying
stuff on the LCD? I've been using this laptop for just over a year now
so my warranty is gone..... If anyone has any idea on how to fix it,
please tell me.
Thank you!
-Ryuhei
_______________________________________________
LinuxR3000 mailing list
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000
Wiki at http://prinsig.se/weekee/
Has anyone here experienced a problem where the R3000 stops displaying
stuff on the LCD? I've been using this laptop for just over a year now
so my warranty is gone..... If anyone has any idea on how to fix it,
please tell me.
Thank you!
-Ryuhei
_______________________________________________
LinuxR3000 mailing list
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000
Wiki at http://prinsig.se/weekee/
--
SiliconSlick <***@siliconslick.com>
SiliconSlick <***@siliconslick.com>