Laptop screen blank after crash.

[killpotts]

Hey everyone, I have a big problem and I am hoping for some possible solution.

I was playing Guild wars for a while and all of the sudden the screen freaked out on me. It did something that resembled what an old regular Nintendo would look like when it crashed - gray and colored lines across the screen. Nothing would respond, so I had to hard reset IE push the power button.

Now, My screen will not turn on when I boot up. No bios, no nothing. I can tell that the CPU itself is booting up, but the screen remains off until it boots up to Ubuntu. When it boots to ubuntu I can hear the drumroll music it makes at startup, and the screen "sort of" turns on. What I mean by sort of turning on is that the screen lights up and shows it has power to it, but still remains black/blank as opposed to off/dead.

FYI I know this is likely a dead graphics card. Problem is if it is a dead graphics card I am basically screwed as this particular make/model of graphics card has it built into the motherboard making it cost too much to replace, and the laptop is out of warranty. So I am looking to see if anyone knows anything that may be a possible alternative solution ( if there is one ).

My specs relevant to this issue are:

-Gateway model M680
Gateway M680 Review (pics, specs) - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion
-256Mb Nvidia Go 6800 graphics card
-Ubuntu 8.10
-120 GB IDE hd

[dxqcanada]

So you tried entering the Bios setup at boot (F10) ... and you get no screen output?

I the Graphics Card is shot ... I do not know of any easy way of repairing it yourself.

[killpotts]

I managed to get it so my bios shows booting when hooked up to an external monitor, so it's not totally dead ...but it still goes back to black/blank as soon as ubuntu loads and the monitor said "Video mode not supported". I suspected that this is because I have my resolution set to 1680x1050 and the monitor I plugged it into only supports 4:3 ( which explains why it displays my bios a bit weird, with skipped lines and such ) So I went to the grub menu during bootup and tried to use xrandr to change my resolution, but it wouldn't let me.


See, I wouldn't mind having to use an external monitor as long as it works. This laptop got pretty beat up during college so I never move it from its location and basically use it as a desktop already. Any ideas as to how to just get my actual desktop back would be great.

Note: I am unable to boot from the live CD either.

[dxqcanada]

Have you tried to jump to the console after you get the Video error (ie Ctrl+Alt+F1) ?

[killpotts]

No, but I will try that next

I just tried booting from the live CD, and it looked really quite bizarre. It does not show the "Ubuntu" Graphic and instead the live CD displays as a blue dos-looking menu. I selected to boot from CD without changes and it got to the desktop ( The live CD desktop ) but looks really weird. I can move my mouse around, and the default background shows with a few graphical bugs, but none of the toolbars come up and my keyboard becomes unresponsive. So I basically can't do anything in it.

[killpotts]

I tried ctrl alt f1 and got root command, but no luck. when I type xrandr it just gives me "cant open display".

[Bemk]

I think your graphics just got busted, but I can't really tell for sure, since I'm not an expert. If you go out shopping for a graphics card, I suggest you do some research on which cards are already supported by Linux.

[Chris H]

I've occassionally had blank screens after my laptop bombs out that doesn't get fixed on reboot.

It usually gets fixed by removing the battery and making a cup of tea before starting everything up again.

Worth a try.

[rokytnji]

It usually gets fixed by removing the battery and making a cup of tea before starting everything up again.Worth a try.

Same here on one of my laptops. I let it sit for a couple days and after turning it on the screen started working again.

[killpotts]

Just tried Aircan cleaning with little results, here are some pictures from the external monitor:

Here is the bios screen: Note the letters randomly spaced incorrectly and random anomalies like "Securioo" instead of "Security"



Here is What booting from the ubuntu live CD looks like. Note random anomalies:



Grub Recovery menu:



Xrandr error ( note the anomalous "r" :








And the screen still goes blank when I attempt to boot.

So, is this something that is possible to fix ? :P

And I guess leaving it one for a day or two is worth a shot. Got nothing else :P