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Shadow2531
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2003
- Messages
- 1,670
Friend has a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop. She shut it down and when she turned it back on, it wasn't working right.
The screen is black on boot (as in, you can't even see the initial text to get into the bios etc.). But, when Vista finally loads, the screen gets a little brightness to it (like the backlight came on), but it's still black, and the brightness and contrast are up.
While the laptop is off, you can press the home button to start the laptop in media direct mode. Then, the screen will work. But, it's kind of dim.
When you start the computer up normally (and boot into Vista), you can hook up an external monitor and press Fn + F8 to switch to it. This works fine. But, using Fn + F8 to try and switch back to the laptop's screen has no effect. It just instantly switches back to the external monitor like the laptop screen doesn't exist.
In the Windows device manager, the intel display adapters (there are 2 of them listed, which is expected). both have error codes (23 I think).
Uninstalling the 2 display adapters drivers and reinstalling them to make sure they have the newest drivers doesn't make a difference (I didn't think it would anyway as the screen's black on bootup). The errors codes are still there.
With the external crt monitor, 32bit color and high resolutions are available. But, adjustment for refersh rate at any resolution is limited to 60Hz despite the monitor supporting higher. The windows display settings also only show one monitor.
Also, the laptop doesn't have a tiny button for the lid that could get stuck, so that's not the problem.
Now, I'm thinking it could be the inverter and or lamp for the screen and or the onboard display adapter. But, since things work fine with an external monitor (and fine but dim in Media Direct mode), I'm thinking that it's just something with the screen and not the display adapter.
However, can the display adapter and its drivers recognize that there's something wrong with the LCD? If so, maybe the error in the device manager is because of this. If not, then it seems like the display adapter is indeed bad.
Or, maybe it's a loose connection where the screen plugs into the motherboard. But, that doesn't make sense (given all the above) unless there's a separate connection that media direct mode uses.
Does Media Direct mode use a separate display adapter or something? If so, that might mean that it's just the onboard intel adapter that's bad, which would suck.
To add, the screen doesn't work with an Ubuntu live CD either.
The laptop is not under warranty either.
Given the above, does anyone have a likely (almost definite guess) answer as to what the problem is?
Is there any way the display adapter could be stuck in media direct mode even when booting into Vista?
Thanks
The screen is black on boot (as in, you can't even see the initial text to get into the bios etc.). But, when Vista finally loads, the screen gets a little brightness to it (like the backlight came on), but it's still black, and the brightness and contrast are up.
While the laptop is off, you can press the home button to start the laptop in media direct mode. Then, the screen will work. But, it's kind of dim.
When you start the computer up normally (and boot into Vista), you can hook up an external monitor and press Fn + F8 to switch to it. This works fine. But, using Fn + F8 to try and switch back to the laptop's screen has no effect. It just instantly switches back to the external monitor like the laptop screen doesn't exist.
In the Windows device manager, the intel display adapters (there are 2 of them listed, which is expected). both have error codes (23 I think).
Uninstalling the 2 display adapters drivers and reinstalling them to make sure they have the newest drivers doesn't make a difference (I didn't think it would anyway as the screen's black on bootup). The errors codes are still there.
With the external crt monitor, 32bit color and high resolutions are available. But, adjustment for refersh rate at any resolution is limited to 60Hz despite the monitor supporting higher. The windows display settings also only show one monitor.
Also, the laptop doesn't have a tiny button for the lid that could get stuck, so that's not the problem.
Now, I'm thinking it could be the inverter and or lamp for the screen and or the onboard display adapter. But, since things work fine with an external monitor (and fine but dim in Media Direct mode), I'm thinking that it's just something with the screen and not the display adapter.
However, can the display adapter and its drivers recognize that there's something wrong with the LCD? If so, maybe the error in the device manager is because of this. If not, then it seems like the display adapter is indeed bad.
Or, maybe it's a loose connection where the screen plugs into the motherboard. But, that doesn't make sense (given all the above) unless there's a separate connection that media direct mode uses.
Does Media Direct mode use a separate display adapter or something? If so, that might mean that it's just the onboard intel adapter that's bad, which would suck.
To add, the screen doesn't work with an Ubuntu live CD either.
The laptop is not under warranty either.
Given the above, does anyone have a likely (almost definite guess) answer as to what the problem is?
Is there any way the display adapter could be stuck in media direct mode even when booting into Vista?
Thanks
