Laptop woes

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traceyjj

Senior Member
Any computer experts here please...


My workhorse Sony Vaio laptop "died" yesterday :(


The screen has stopped working (I have plugged it into an external monitor and nothing is visible on that either). I can hear the fan and the hard drive so there is "life" in there.


Any ideas as to where to look for problems?


I'm VERY reluctant to ditch the laptop as the spec is still more than reasonable.
 
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mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Sounds like it could be your graphics or video card never sure which one does the job,probably not relevant with a modern laptop but i had one that would not display on an external screen unless you switched off the built in one, which of course you cant do.
 
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SteveH

Senior Member
I would say graphics card too. Some laptops have a dedicated card (replaceable), but most are in-built (Not replaceable).
As an initial check, I would cycle through the various display modes on the laptop.... Hold down the function "Fn" button and press the display button (Normally F4) a few times and see if it springs into life - You can try this with an external display attached too.
 
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traceyjj

Senior Member
Thanks all.
It has a separate graphics card (ATI Radeon I think), so I'll have a look into how much that will cost to replace/upgrade. @SteveH my hubby had a look last night, he plugged it into a screen and pressed the Fn keys to try to wake the screen up and nothing worked.
 
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traceyjj

Senior Member
mikew said:
Its those D800 files,they have worn it out :D,hope its a cheapish fix
Click to expand...
I suppose its my fault its broken, I was only saying to my hubby that I needed to save for a more powerful computer to cope with the RAW files from the D800... now its broken it suddenly seems so "dear to me" and I dont want to replace it if its a cheap fix :)
 
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§am

Senior Member
Do you see anything when you power it up or is it blank from the moment you press the on button?
Could be graphics card related, but even fried BIOS, CPU, motherboard, etc could cause a blank screen
 
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traceyjj

Senior Member
Just a follow-up to this.
I took it to 3 computer repair places on Saturday to get a quote/idea of what might be wrong. 3 places, 4 different ideas as to what it was. The last 2 places I took it to was a PC world who do a free "diagnostic" check. First one was unhelpful and diagnosed a hard drive failure, but would need £50 an hour to "check it out" plus any parts it might need. Second PC world were much more helpful AND they got it working (even though its intermittent) THEY think its the ribbon that connects the screen to the base of the laptop. Unfortunately, IF my model is one type it means a whole new monitor, and at 5 year old I'm not sure its worth spending a few hundred £s repairing it. So I am limping it along until I can get the money saved for a new laptop (or desktop if we get more space at home LOL)
 
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RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Sorry to hear about this saga. I would offer to take a look at it myself if closer...hope you're able to get something working long term.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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traceyjj

Senior Member
Thanks @RocketCowboy I suppose I was lucky enough to make sure all my data has been removed, so when it does finally go, I have lost nothing. I'm hopeful it wont take too long to save, however, it blows the ability of spending at the camera show in March
 
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