Laptop blank screen?

dee.

Hey all, went to use my laptop this morning and it booted up fine then suddenly restarted and froze on the dell logo, leaving me no choice but to turn it off and restart. When I did tt powered up (beeping noise included!) but the screen remained blank and the caps lock light kept flashing. I took out the ram and reinserted it and tried again and the screen remains black but the caps lock and num lock lights are on now although not flashing. I tried powering the laptop without the main battery and it's still a black screen. Anyone have any advice? It's not under warranty anymore

duckysauce

dee. wrote: »

Hey all, went to use my laptop this morning and it booted up fine then suddenly restarted and froze on the dell logo, leaving me no choice but to turn it off and restart. When I did tt powered up (beeping noise included!) but the screen remained blank and the caps lock light kept flashing. I took out the ram and reinserted it and tried again and the screen remains black but the caps lock and num lock lights are on now although not flashing. I tried powering the laptop without the main battery and it's still a black screen. Anyone have any advice? It's not under warranty anymore

is there a stick of mem under the keyboard ? take it out and put the other stick in. What model is it ?

dee.

Do you mean the ram? That's at the back, I already took it out and put it back in but no change, there is no second one for me to test it. Under the keyboard is a coin cell battery, I read on google this can cause the problem I have so I bought a new one today but still have the same problem. The display was fine when it powered up this morning and last night, I had it sitting on my bed when the screen restarted so it definitely didn't get a bang or anything.

dee.

Also it's a dell 1501

Allyall

What beeping noise is it making?

What Lights light up, and in what order?

dee.

Oh it's not a strange noise or anything, my laptop has always made a short quick beep when it starts up and it's still making the sound which is like a little beep.

the caps lock and num lock lights both light up at the same time. Pressing the keys doesn't change them.

Tried powering it up this morning but no luck..still a black screen

Allyall

Have you tried powering up without the battery in?

Also, try with battery in and NO power attached.

Have you tried powering up with only one stick of RAM in at a time and, swapping the RAM to the other port, with both/all sticks of RAM? i.e. Use first stick of RAM in port 1, then try same stick in port 2, and repeat with all RAM individually.

Are you sure it's the Num lock and Caps lock? Not Scroll lock and Caps lock?

Does it look like this?


Or like this?



I can't find a diagnostic for the lights you have mentioned (Solid Num and Caps Lock)

No beep? Or just a single beep, booting past BIOS..?

hearny

Sounds like the machine is getting past the bios screen but failing to boot, make sure there is no cd / dvd in the drive that its trying to boot off.

The hard drive could be the issue, do you have the data backed up?

Do you have an external hard drive. If you do you can try to boot to a liveCD (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD) with the external hard drive connected and copy your important data onto the external.

Otherwise you could connect the laptops hard drive to another computer and try to retrieve the data.

Do you have the Windows XP disk (I assume its windows xp, Dell 1501 shipped with XP in most cases).

dee.

It's not getting passed anything - straight away when I turn it on the screen is blank. Nothing shows up. Tried ctrl+alt+del/f8 etc - nothing shows up.

It's windows vista, I'm sure I have the disk somewhere but given that the screen is black and I can't get into the option to boot from disk I don't think it's useful?

I don't have my HD backedup but there's nothing that can't be replaced on it, I'd rather have a working laptop as I can afford to replace it.

@ al - I have tried everything you suggested already and still no change with it. You are right it's caps and scroll- my bad.

hearny

dee. wrote: »

It's not getting passed anything - straight away when I turn it on the screen is blank. Nothing shows up. Tried ctrl+alt+del/f8 etc - nothing shows up.

It's windows vista, I'm sure I have the disk somewhere but given that the screen is black and I can't get into the option to boot from disk I don't think it's useful?

I don't have my HD backedup but there's nothing that can't be replaced on it, I'd rather have a working laptop as I can afford to replace it.

@ al - I have tried everything you suggested already and still no change with it. You are right it's caps and scroll- my bad.

Sorry I misread the op think I'm still recovering from the long weekend.

I will have a look and see if I can get info on it but in the mean time have you tested an external monitor with it.

It good be the graphics card so it might be worth opening the laptop to clean it out. How comfortable would you be doing that.

dee.

I opened up the screen and made sure the wires were connected and also the part under the keyboard (not the ram part, that's in the back) cleaned out any dust but didn't do anything else as I was afraid it would damage it further.

I haven't connected it to an external monitor as I don't have one, don't know anybody with one either sadly!

duckysauce

dee. wrote: »

Do you mean the ram? That's at the back, I already took it out and put it back in but no change, there is no second one for me to test it. Under the keyboard is a coin cell battery, I read on google this can cause the problem I have so I bought a new one today but still have the same problem. The display was fine when it powered up this morning and last night, I had it sitting on my bed when the screen restarted so it definitely didn't get a bang or anything.

hi the primary ram / memory is under the keyboard take this out PUT THE ONE YOU have found from the bottom of machine in and try it .This guy here shows how

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwqnlAUz-QI

dee.

duckysauce wrote: »

hi the primary ram / memory is under the keyboard take this out PUT THE ONE YOU have found from the bottom of machine in and try it .This guy here shows how

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwqnlAUz-QI

There's no RAM directly under my keyboard. Alll that's there is the coin cell battery and a blue and white wire.

dee.

Just got access to an external monitor and tried to hook it up. I connected the cables and powered both up but the external monitor still had a little light flashing like it would if it's not connected to a computer/computer isn't powered up.

Allyall

Hi Dee.

Take out the RAM at the bottom, and try and put it in the front as in the video duckysauce posted.
Can you clean the RAM. Alcohol lint free wipes you will get them in many places for under €10, Try Harvey Norman or PCWorld. Run the wipe gently along the contacts, (The golden "teeth" at the bottom of the RAM) ALL THE TIME HOLDING THE RAM BY IT'S EDGES.

Also, you may want to try buying compressed air, (DON'T SHAKE IT) and giving the RAM slot a blast. These products are good to have in the future, too, so they won't be a one off purchase and left to sit there. They're good for cleaning a laptop etc.

The LED lights you are seeing are the DELL POST CODE DIAGNOSTICS for


No SODIMM installed - DELL Recommends
1. Reseating the memory 2. Replacing the memory


3. Replacing the system board


Number 3 is a bit of a jump. There is a few other things you can try.


You may have to reseat the processor, and see if that makes a difference.
Assuming none of the above does.


If it looks like this, Reseating the Processor is recommended.





Are they solid or blinking at all?


Anyway, first, be 100% it's not the RAM.

Allyall

Hi Dee.

Take out the RAM at the bottom, and try and put it in the front as in the video duckysauce posted.
Can you clean the RAM. Buy Alcohol lint free wipes. You will get them in many places for under €10, Try Harvey Norman or PCWorld. Run the wipe gently along the contacts, (The golden "teeth" at the bottom of the RAM) ALL THE TIME HOLDING THE RAM BY IT'S EDGES.

Also, you may want to try buying compressed air, (DON'T SHAKE IT) and giving the RAM slot a blast. These products are good to have in the future, too, so they won't be a one off purchase and left to sit there. They're good for cleaning a laptop etc.

The LED lights you are seeing are the DELL POST CODE DIAGNOSTICS for


No SODIMM installed - DELL Recommends
1. Reseating the memory
2. Replacing the memory


3. Replacing the system board


Number 3 is a bit of a jump. There is a few other things you can try.


You may have to reseat the processor, and see if that makes a difference.
Assuming none of the above does.


If it looks like this, Reseating the Processor is recommended.





Are they solid or blinking at all?


Anyway, first, be 100% it's not the RAM.