Dell XPS M1330 - Screen not working!?

besty

Hi guys

Just a quick question in relation to my Dell Studio XPS laptop. I'd greatly appreciate any advice from those in the know!

Since yesterday evening,my laptops screen is no longer working. The laptop boots up fine and I can even hear the windows startup sound. Nothing appears on the screen at any stage.

I have tried to remove the battery and start up on AC power etc but no joy unfortunately!

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Lazarus2.0

If you shine a torch at the screen is your welcome screen barely visible ?

Can you connect an external monitor to see if it displays ok on that ? You may need to press Fn+F8 to enable external display .

2Scoops

The M1330 had a well-known issue with the video card overheating that might be responsible. Are you still under warranty?

duckysauce

sounds like a screen or invertor if it was the card it wouldn't boot up

yomamasflavour

Chances are the graphics card is gone, (all 1330, 1530, 1730 with dedicated graphics cards fail eventually)

nessyguin's advice is very good.

If you can still see text on the screen when you shine a light on it, then it's the screen inverter that is gone. (inverters are cheap to replace, as are screens if required)

If not then try the external monitor, if nothing displays then your graphics card has failed. Unfortunately thats not cheap to replace as it means a replacement motherboard is required.

BostonB

I thought when the graphics card goes on these, or indeed any latop with that gfx card, it garbles the display rather than going blank. Going blank sounds more like a screen inverter.

Incidentally some M1330 have an intel onboard gfx that doesn't have gfx problems that the Nvidia ones do.

yomamasflavour

Any with (6,7,8,9 series dedicated graphics cards) will eventually go blank.

Usually though they display artifacts (lines, dots, checkered patterns) for a brief period before failing.

BostonB

From what I've read, the 8 and 9 series are effected by a manufacturing flaw. You can't avoid it. Whereas the 6 and 7 series problems are different in that they seem to be mainly heat related where there's not enough cooling.

OctavarIan

Whatever you do don't go to Dell if you're outside of warranty. They'll diagnose the problem as the motherboard, attempt to charge you around €600 then 'cut a deal' for you at around €500.

If nothing is showing in an external monitor (TV or whatever you can get your hands on) then it's most likely the graphics chipset, which will cost around €140-€160 to replace. Bring it to a competent repair place.

Kinetic^

If you're hearing the windows login then it's a screen, cable or inverter issue. If it was the GPU you wouldn't be able to login.

besty

Thank you all for the helpful advice.

Thankfully it transpired that my laptop was still in warranty. After some frustrating back and forward with their technician, I had a new screen and motherboard installed in the laptop and it is now working perfectly.

x in the city

gotta love XPS support

my M1730 failed with gpu few weeks ago.

a 9800GT Sli.

going mad i was.. so anyway, even if i am in a totally different country, run the uk xps line and got a 9800GTX installed :eek:, with 2Gig of memory./


I just kept quiet...:p