HomeI have an HP Omnibook 6100 notebook, it was given to my niece as a gift. The original owner was a medical tech so she erased everything of the hard drive I do not know if she used format or just erase, anyway now the notebook acts like it is booting but the monitor is blank I tried the recovery disks no help. I made a support disk no help. I am almost sure that the video driver is gone but I can’t find a way to reinstall it. I went to the HP site and they have their advice no help. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I did try an external monitor – no help.
You’ve tried connecting an external monitor and didn’t get any image on it, correct? It tells me that most likely there is nothing wrong with the LCD screen. Probably something else is going on.
The notebook starts booting and the screen is blank right from the beginning, correct? If that’s the case, then it is not a video driver related problem. When you have a bad or corrupted video driver, you still should see an image on the screen when you turn on the notebook. With a bad video driver the screen might turn black when Windows starts loading but not before that.
Try this. Start the laptop without the hard drive installed and see if you can get any image on the screen. If the laptop starts with video when the hard drive is removed, probably you have a bad hard drive. Maybe the original owner damaged the hard driver before she gave this notebook to you.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:26 am
hi im having this same exact problem on my hp zt300. i tried taking off the hard drive and its still blank, so i placed it back in. But when i take off my battery and ram for a couple minutes and put it back in the computer starts normally then after 5 mins or so the screen starts flickering everywhere and soon becomes frozen. after a restart the computer goes back to a blank screen… any help??
thanks
May 4th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Carlos,
I think the problem could be somehow related to the memory module. If you have two memory slots, move the memory stick from one slot to another. Find a known good memory module and test the laptop again.
Also you can try this. Unplug the laptop LCD cable from the motherboard and test the laptop with an external monitor. If it works fine with the external monitor when the LCD is unplugged, something is wrong with the LCD or cable.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
i called hp about it and they told me to take it off and try it again…i did it and the same thing happened…. so now i’m guessing its the memory stick.. im going to try purchasing a new one and ill come back with the results..thanks
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I am having close to the same problem. I think it is my video card but I am not sure. I have a Toshiba Satellite P100 model PSPA3U-12X01U. When I turn on my notebook, my screen powers on but I get no visuals only a lit black screen. It does work correctly when plugged into an external monitor however. My video card is not fully integrated into the motherboard and is a Nvidia Geforce Go 7600 G73M. I wasn’t sure if that was the problem, if so how can it be replaced as it does not have standard PCI-E, PCI, or AGP connections? Thanks for your time.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Hi,
I have an hp pavilion dv 2000. When I boot it up the screen is totally black but the lights on the keyboard still light up as well as the start button. I can also hear the laptop running. I even tried to hook it up to an external monitor and still got a black screen. I was told it might be the motherboard? Any help with this I’d really appreciate. Thank you.
Kassandra.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Kassandra,
Can you see the hard drive LED flashing, like it’s working?
Start the laptop with an external monitor again and try to switch video from internal mode to external with Fn and F4 key combination. Hold down Fn and press on F4 a few times. Still nothing?
January 8th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
hello, i have a dell inspiron 5150 laptop, and it was previously owned before. but as i was using it one day the computer whent into its normal sleeper mode(you know when you stop using it for a good while) so it goes into sleeper mode and then i touch the mouse pad and the screen goes completly dim. i went on using it with an old pc monitor. and somehow my brother fixed it once. but then it happend again and now i cant get it to go back to how it was. its just really dim, like i can barely read the screen. any help would be appreciated. thanks
January 8th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
danny,
Could be bad inverter board. You’ll find more information in the “screen inverter” and “screen problems” categories. Read about other laptops with the same problem and you’ll get the idea.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
If it is a bad inverter or burnt out backlight bulb (same symptom = LCD backlight not turning on) then you will still see the coloring of the pixels on the screen, meaning if you hold a flashlight to them you will still see the info on the screen. If this is the case, then either the backlight is burnt out (unlikely) or the power to the backlight isn’t coming in from the inverter (much more likely). Replacing the inverter is not terribly hard.
If the screen is blank but the computer is still booting (for instance, you here the Windows intro sound after a minute) then the best test is to plug in an external monitor and see if it displays. If it does, good. The LCD is bad or not connected properly. These can be fixed. If it doesn’t, good luck. If your laptop has an integrated graphics chip or a discrete GPU permanently attached to the mainboard, you are screwed since it’s rare that a mainboard replacement costs less than the value of a laptop. If you’ve got a removable graphics card then replacing it might fix the problem. It also might not if the mainboard is bad.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Same problem here, computer boots up gine but display is blank. i plugged in a monitor to the vga port on the side of the laptop and that monitor shows with vertical lines everywhere thru the picture. HP’s first solution was reinstall windows which fixed the problem, but only for about 1 week now it is doing the samething again! now HP is saying to replace the motherboard!
March 29th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Justin,
Apparently this is the video card failure. In most laptop the video card is integrated into the motherboard. When video card fails you have to replace the whole motherboard.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
…hey,i’ve a problem with my external monitor…
plz,have look at my problem…
i’ve a 17cm screen laptop…the screen is spoiled now and i’m using an external 15”LG monitor…the external monitor works fine with linux…but here’s my problem…when i try booting windows XP from a CD…after the “…press any key to boot from CD”…i press a key then the monitor goes blank and goes to sleep mode…i tried with my friend’s bigger size 17” monitor…i could see XP interface…
Do i have to do some screen settings on the 15” monitor or plz suggest me a suitable solution…i’l be grateful…
April 19th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
michael,
Here are a few thinks you can try.
1. Enter the BIOS setup menu on your laptop and set the external monitor as a primary screen. If you have that option of course.
2. I assume when the external 15″ monitor goes to sleep mode the laptop still keep running, right? Try switching video from internal to external mode using the keyboard shortcut. On Toshibas it’s Fn+F5, on HPs it’s Fn+F4, on IBMs it’s Fn+F7. Hold down the Fn key and at the same time press on the F_ key.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Hi, I have a HP dv2000, my laptop screen is dim, but you can just about see things on it, i have it plugged into my tv via a HDMI cable. I have a separate NVidia graphics card. What is wrong with it? Is the screen broken? or the Graphics card no running porperly? i havnt changed any setting, it just wouldnt work suddenly. I have tried using a windows restore point from weks ago to fix it but nothing?
Cheers,
Chris
May 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I cracked my HP Pavillion dv2500 Notebook LCD screen, and its too expensive to replace right now. So I’m wanting to hook my notebook up to a monitor. I have a dell monitor and I also have a w17e HP LCD Monitor. When I reboot my notebook with either monitor hooked up the monitor stays black. I can tell that its trying to work but it won’t show me anything. I’ve tried the fn f4 thing and it still won’t work? What can I do now?
May 15th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I have the same issue with my HP however the one thing that no one has mentioned is that , when I turn the laptop on i see the log and the the windows logo as well and then it goes blank from there. However if is start the computer on safe more or boot up from a Bart PE Cd it works fine, so I guess it only fails on normal mode. what do you guys think?
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 am
Hi,
I’ve got a problem withm my laptop screen (Toshiba P100-286). It doesn’t work as it should. After stating my laptop I can see Toshiba logo while is booting and then sometimes go blank. I can see everything on external monitor but not on the laptop. The other time laptop starts properly but after 20min or let say 30 min (time is vary) my laptop screen becomes blank again. I have reinstalled my Nvidia driver many times I have even reinstalled a whole system but the problem still occurs. There are moments where laptop is working fine but most of the time I have to switch to my external monitor LCD TV which is not very convienient as it’s up on the wall. Please advice what can cause this problem. Thanks in advance.
August 28th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I’m having the same exact problem as described by Chris and I use the same laptop (Toshiba P100-286). It just started a couple days ago. Was Chris ever able to find a solution to his problem or can anyone recommend one? So far what I’ve heard as possible fixes are replacing the video card but if the video card is part of the m/b then buying a new laptop would actually be more cost effective. If there is any other solution besides buying a new laptop, I would appreciate hearing it. Thanks.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Jason,
If the laptop works with an external monitor than most likely the video card is OK.
Are you sure that laptop screen is blank? Take a closer look. Can you see a very very dim image on the screen?
If the image is still there, it’s likely that you have a faulty inverter board – a power supply for the backlight lamp. When inverter dies, the screen looses backlight and the image on the screen gets very dark.
Again, take a closer look on the screen.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
carlos,
It’s possible that you have a problem with the video driver.
Instead of booting in Safe Mode try booting the laptop in VGA mode, it’s when all drivers are loaded except the video driver. If the laptop works fine in VGA mode, try uninstalling the video driver and booting the laptop in normal mode. After that reinstall the driver.
September 12th, 2009 at 11:43 am
My lptop was working fine last night but when i went to turn it on this morning it started up but the screen remains blank. I tried hooking up and external monitor but that screen is blank too. When i try inserting a disk into the drive it would read it but the screen would still be blank. My laptop is an LGR40.
September 19th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Brandi,
Take a closer look at the screen. Is it really blank? Maybe you can see a very faint image on the screen?
If the screen is blank, your problem could be related to the memory module. If you have two memory modules installed, try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each one separately. If you have only one module, try replacing it with a known good module.
January 24th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Hi,
I had the same black screen problem with my Compaq Presario f700.
I went the HP website to troubleshoot and found that a hard reset fixes the blank screen issue.
To perform a Hard Reset, unplug the AC power adapter and remove the battery, and then press and hold down the Power button for about 6 seconds. This will drain any residual charge in the capacitors and reset the power management controls to their default condition.
This fixed my problem.
I hope it helps you.
Best regards!
April 29th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Hello, im having a problem with my laptop, HP X16-1040us i have almost 2 year with it… I start the computer then the logo of HP appears then it goes black i hear windows starting but all the way is black…. Its working fine with an external monitor…. I tried the FN+F4 and for a brief time i shows an image then black again any help? could you plz answer to my email address so i can check the answer on my phone please? danco107@hotmail.com….. Any help would be very appreciated i live in venezuela and i have no warranty… Tahnks a lot for your time
April 29th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Daniel,
Take a very close look at the screen when it goes black. Is it completely blank or you still can see a very faint image?
The image could be very dark, so look very closely. Look at the screen under bright light.
If the image is still there, most likely this is the inverter board or backlight lamp failure.
Try replacing the inverter board first.
April 30th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Hello, yes i sometimes can see the faint image in the back sometimes i can’t. Is there any link i can check about this inverter board fix?… I mean i wouldn’t try to fix it because i never open/fix any laptop before its just to be inform of whats needed to be a little inform about it. Thank you for your quick answer.
July 11th, 2010 at 8:45 am
hi , i have a presariom2000 compaq , i start it up and it goes to the menu screen where it says start windows normally , safe mode , safe mode with command prompt , but then the screen goes black and i cant do anything on it , i tried turning it off and doing the same thing but nothing happens , if any one could help me with this i appreciate it thank you
July 12th, 2010 at 10:14 am
john,
Can you start the laptop in Safe Mode?
September 12th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Hi, I hope you guys can help me with a little issue i have here. I have a Compaq 610 laptop that was given to me with a cracked screen. I hooked it up to an external monitor and everything works fine.
so i proceeded to buy a new screen for the laptop and i got one, hooked it up and all i get is a blank screen..well i thought it was the screen and returned it back to where i ordered it from. ordered another one from a totally different source and the same thing is happening, blank screen nothing else…and i keep hooking the laptop up to an external monitor with no problem..any help would be really appreciated!
November 1st, 2010 at 1:08 pm
hi
my hp pavillion has got a black screen. my little bro say he slammed the cd drive in and the screen went black. we connected it to a external monitor and it works perfectly we found no probs with backlight of the screen. any tips?
November 1st, 2010 at 4:53 pm
margay,
Take a closer look at the laptop screen. Is it completely black and blank or you still can see a very faint image?
December 1st, 2010 at 5:28 am
Hi. I have this Thinkpad T42 system. I initially plugged a charger not meant for it and it spoilt the inbuilt fuse. So I had to bridge it and it work. Now, when I turn on my laptop, at times it comes up and other times its blank but the power indicatiors are on and the ROM drives is also on. Please I need help on this.
December 3rd, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Hi,
My laptop would start, lights, fan, and all, but the screen would be black. The backlight would come on, but the screen is black blank. I can even hear the sound that comes on when the ASUS BIOS logo would come on. If i wait a bit, and type in my password, then enter, i can adjust the backlight dimness and turn the backlight off. I tried removing and switching memory modules and harddrive, with no avail. i would “log in” and press the external moniter button, but the external moniter would be blank too. thanks
December 8th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
William,
I think this could be:
- Bad connection between the video cable and motherboard or LCD screen. Try reseating the video cable on both ends.
- Defective video cable.
- Failed LCD screen.
It’s hard to troubleshoot the problem without spare parts.
Did you test external video before this failure? Did it work before?
I think you can try disconnecting the video cable from the motherboard and test external video after that. When LCD disconnected, the laptop should start external monitor as soon as the laptop turned on. Does it work this way?
If not, probably this is motherboard related problem.
February 8th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
I have a DELL LAtitude E6500. It worked fine until I hooked it up to my new TV. Somehow changing the screen over seems to have activated my NVIDIA software and I have had alot of trouble since that time. When I boot the laptop the screen is VERY DIM, I would say, 90%. Using Fn and Dimmer Off keys does nothing initially, Usually, I can finally get the screen back to normal brightness after messing around with various keys for awhile. At some point, I hit the Fn/No Dim and it works! I havne’t hit on a solid series of steps tht will result in the screen brightness being restored, but I am relatively sure it has something to do with NVIDIA.
Also, when I use an external screen such as my TV or a projector, the monitor screen will not display and goes completely black. For example, I can’t use the laptop for .ppt presentations as my screen goes black when I press Fn/F8 to toggle the projector image on.
Any advice?
February 13th, 2011 at 4:39 am
my msi EX460 acting wierd. the built in lcd just blank.it doesnt boot up without attaching external monitor first.
the laptop lcd works fine after it detect the external monitor.you can even remove the external monitor and use the laptop without problem. any ideas?
February 28th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
RE: HP Notebook G61-410SA
On power on and boot up the screen flashes once and remains dark.
Startup logo and items can be seen on dark screen if screen is tilted.
Tests done so far:
1. Hard reset
2. Residual charge release actioned
2. External monitor connection os run from usb
3. Screen flashes on and off (shows characters) at exact same angle when brought down to near closing point.
4. Screen inverter has been replaced.
Please can you tell me what else may be wrong.
Kind regards
Ben
April 8th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Dell Precision M70 laptop.
During startup (BIOS or initial boot) nothing is visible on the screen unless used with external monitor.
THEN with Linux boot (Ubuntu), laptop screen works perfectly fine as well as the external one. Screen won’t work at all with Windows.
Basically I have to startup using external monitor connected, then the laptop screen is fine once disconnected from external one. Whyyyy please help lol
April 8th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Stu,
Check the BIOS setup menu.
Maybe the external monitor is set a s a primary screen. This is just a guess.
Do you have “Load Default Settings” option in the BIOS. If you do, try it.
April 15th, 2011 at 9:36 am
ASUS K50AB laptop. Couldn’t start my laptop this morning. Very sad…
When power button is pressed, green LED goes on and cooler starts at high speed, as well. Screen flashes with black colour and then remains black.
HDD LED is off, keyboard lights are off (num lock, wifi led, caps lock led).
Nothing happens, cooler continues to rotate at high speed (normally, after 5-10 seconds cooler should go to silent mode and slow speed). External monitor – no picture at all.
No sounds, no evidence of booting. No reaction. The only thing that can be done is power off (by holding power button for 3-5 seconds).
Normally I have two graphic cards – Intel 3200 (embedded) and ATI Radeon HD 4570 (discrete).
I’ve already tried resetting BIOS (removed normal battery and CMOS round battery for about 10-15 minutes).
If one of these cards stopped working, can I somehow switch to another one?
If not, what can be the problem?
Could you please help me with my problem? (the laptop is only 1.5 years in use, but the warranty was only 12 months).
Best regards,
Andrew.
April 17th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Andrew,
First, I would try removing memory modules one by one. It’s possible that one of the modules failed and the laptop will not start because of that.
Test the laptop with each memory module separately. Try installing them in different slots.
It’s possible that you have a problem with one of the video cards.
I guess the laptop will automatically use the discrete card when it’s installed. Is it easy to remove the discrete card? Maybe the laptop will switch to the embedded video card when the discrete card removed.
You can try barebone approach. Disassemble the laptop as much as you can. Remove battery, DVD drive, hard drive, wireless card, etc… Leave only main parts: motherboard, memory, CPU and probably discrete video card (if you cannot remove it). Disconnect LCD cable from the motherboard (or video card) and test the laptop with an external monitor. Can you get image on the external monitor this way? If not, it’s possible you have faulty motherboard. I hope not.
Good luck!
Удачи!
November 10th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Hey there. I got a problem with my asus k50ab. The laptop starts but the screen doesn’t turn on. And the keyboard lights are off. I’ve got a ATI radon hd4570 in. The only thing I can do is turn it off after pressing the off button for a few seconds. Can u please help me put?
November 10th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
@ Danny,
This could be memory related failure. Try reseating memory modules one by one. Test the laptop with each memory module separately. If one of them bad, the laptop will start properly with another module.
November 13th, 2011 at 2:56 am
I do have same problem like Danny. K50AB not powering up. After pressing power button, button light up, fun starts and cd-rom blinks but that is all. No keyboard response, tried external monitor. Does not seems to charge battery and on only battery power does nothing at all but battery was ok on last boot up. Tryed removing memory modules with no changes. Disconnecting BIOS battery – no change. What else to try?
November 13th, 2011 at 11:49 am
@ Ciberbob,
Minimize the laptop as much as you can. Remove the battery, DVD drive, hard drive, wireless card, etc… Disconnect the keyboard. In other words, disassemble the laptop to barebone system: motherboard, CPU, memory.
Try turning it on in this basic configuration. If still nothing, this could be motherboard failure. I assume it’s not memory because you tested the laptop with each memory module separately.
Take a look at this tutorial: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2008/06/14/laptop-dead-troubleshoot-the-problem/
January 14th, 2012 at 7:53 am
sound was not coming out of my Toshiba satellite (i dropped it falling to its headphone jack leavig a piece inside but managed to removed it) so i started tinkering with a headphone attempting to repair it, just as i inserted the pin it went off and could not boot ever again, only the LED Comes on but no cooling fan
January 17th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
@ Komolo,
It’s hard to tell what’s going on without looking at the laptop. I hope you didn’t short the motherboard.
Have you tried the following? Unplug AC adapter, remove battery, push on the power button. After that plug in the AC adapter and try turning it on again.
March 1st, 2012 at 6:29 am
I have a 7720g Acer that boots fine into Windows 7 but there is nothing on the screen, from post to windows. If I search an mp3 in Windows, I can get it to play, everithing works fine but nothing is shown on screen. External monitor is not working with VGA but haven’t tried the DVI connection. Could be the video card ?
March 2nd, 2012 at 12:16 pm
@ Adrian,
Do you mean Windows OS boots fine but all icons and files are missing from the desktop? Is it what you are talking about?
This could be virus infection. Probably all icons and files are still there but hidden.
Here’s something to try.
1. Open Control Panel and click on Folder Options.
2. Click on View tab.
3. Select Show hidden files, folders and drives. Click Apply and OK.
Can you see files and icons on the desktop now?
May 8th, 2012 at 6:00 am
i had a laptop ( toshiba ) i forgot its model… but my problem here is that when i turn on the laptop, the lcd will just shall i say. it will just flash like it’s going to start but everything turns dark.. but the power’s led is on and also with the fan. please help me solve this problem….