No signal to monitor from laptop

can someone <...snip...> tell me just how to post a new thread or maybe cut and paste the question below into one? faqs says 'select a forum' - how? I search forums with a keyword and there is no 'post new thread' option as described on the faqs. how do i post a new thread, idiots guide please.

or can someone post this up?

My monitors both work fine with my tower. I plugged one into my laptop (advent 7200 bust screen) and started reloading windows on to the laptops new hard disk. Worked fine at first, but I came back and the screen was grey. unplugged it, rebooted, whatever, switched off mains and elsewhere, you name it: whatever i do, now as soon as i connect either monitor to the laptop, the monitor switches off: yellow light.

anyone know what's going on? It's happened once before with the tower. Mysteriously solved itself, can't recall why or how.

best

Mike

 

Please tone down your language. I was very tempted just to kill this post.

You cannot select a forum from within a search. If you go to the root of this board (http://www.windowsbbs.com) you will be presented with a list of forums. Select the appropriate forum and then you'll see a "New Thread" button at the top of the page. Use that to start a new series of posts (a thread).

As this is a hardware issue, I've moved your posting to a new thread in the hardware forum. I've also updated the title to give it a little more relevant title.

Selection to use an external monitor for a laptop is usually done via a function key combination on the laptop keyboard. The precise key combination depends on the lap top. On the laptop I have in front of me, its Fn - F5 for example.

Looking at a manual from the Asus support site for an Asus Advent 7200, I think the keyboard combination for your laptop will be FN - F7 (that is hold the FN button down and press F7). With most laptops this key combination cycles you through the options. Something like > laptop screen only, external monitor only, both displays together, back to laptop screen only. So you may find that one press only isn't enough. Try it again if it doesn't work first time.

However, the support for this can depend on video drivers. I have seen instances where new video drivers block the keyboard screen selection option. Lets hope that isn't the case here as I think recovering from it without a monitor is going to be near impossible - short of doing a full reinstall.

 

If you shut down and reboot the laptop with the external monitor connected and powered on, do you see the computer booting up on the external screen and then go blank OR is it just a blank screen on the external monitor the whole time during boot up?

 

hi

hi
thanks for replies: if i keep the monitor on and reboot, the green light comes on for a few seconds, then turns off, back to yellow. The screen stays black.

 

also

and i should add that the laptop screen is bust: i will try the key groups suggested blind, but not having the laptop screen itself i would guess might hamper this

 

I took a look at the manual as well and it looks like FN - F8 is the key combination to toggle between LCD and external displays.

Additionally there seems to be a setting in the BIOS (text from manual)

Perhaps this setting in your BIOS is set to [LCD]. Since your LCD is busted, you wouldn't know what your BIOS settings are. If you could reset your BIOS to default values, this setting should most likely default to [LCD & CRT] since the user manual implies that an external display should work by just plugging it into the notebook VGA output port.

The tricky part is trying to set your BIOS to default values since you can not see the screen. The only way I can think of doing this is by removing the battery on the motherboard which keeps that saved BIOS settings.

I'm not sure how you do this on your model, and the manual does not seem to be forthcoming. Perhaps someone else here knows?

 

hi

hello again

ok, I took the laptop down the repair shop today and wasn't best pleased: but I'm not sure of what the guy told me so maybe I can run it by the forum: I have two laptops, both needing repair, and if I can get good specific advice on here I'll try and get the parts and just do what I can myself. First I'll have to go into a bit more background on the first one to explain:

The Advent 7200 came with Vista. I removed the hard disk to sell it. Then the screen bust, and it was out of warrantee.

So I bought a re-con hard disk from an independent computer shop, which they slotted in. They said it would cost £20+ for them to install Vista, and gave me the option of buying the generic disk for £3 and installing myself.

I did so, plugged the laptop into an external monitor, and started install. Left it a while, seemed to be working, came back: screen grey. After that, laptop turns monitor off when connected. So I took it in today to the same shop.

I asked first if they would look at it for free, having sold me the new hardware and the software during the installation of which the fault occured. This prompted a rapid sulk, in which I was offered my £3 back for the Vista disk, which I refused.

Instead I tried to establish what had happened from the guy and where, if anywhere, fault lay. As I struggled to understand it, the guy said the computer would have two sets of video ram: one for the default and one for an external monitor. He suggested a problem may have occured during the switch. I said the monitor had been working for half the installation. He said that was irrelevant. He then started talking about how there were two kinds of BIOS, one with the hardware and another that Vista loaded on in some way. I got my head round that, and he said his initial conclusion was that because of one or either of these factors, you could not load Vista onto a machine using an external monitor. I asked why I'd been told to do so by him if it wasn't possible. He said he didn't know it was the case until now, and had never loaded Vista using an external monitor before.

It's difficult to get advice from these guys because they charge, and pretty soon he was saying I'd already used nine minutes of his time.Then he agreed to quickly plug the laptop into a monitor. He plugged it in using the monitor cable and a USB. Nothing happened. He looked in at the RAM, suggesting it might be 'loose', still nothing. Then he told me there was no output from the laptop at all, the machine wasn't recognising the monitor, and the motherboard could be dead.

The way I left it was with him insisting the fault, whatever it might be, had happened during windows installation by coincidence. Had they tried to install themselves, they would have reported the machine 'died on the bench'. This seemed to jar with what he said earlier but he explained that the fault he was referring to earlier was a different one, and one which should have cancelled out on the computer being rebooted. The fact that the computer developed a permanent fault at the same time as the temporary fault may have arisen was chance.

I have no significant understanding of computers, and no way of knowing if the guy is being extremely patient by explaining all this and I've been extremely unlucky, or if he is just trying to blind me to what seems a thoroughly unlikely set of coincidences with science. I appreciate he makes his living from his expertise, but he gave no latitude in accepting the fault happened during a process he advised and using software he sold me, and did want to charge for repair, which is becoming uneconomical: the bottom line is from my pov, I bought a new hard disk off him and an operating disk, and when I tried to load it as they suggested, the computer went permanently wrong. Are my natural suspicions about this just down to ignorance, and whether they are or not: what can I do now? I kept the operating disk and have a computer with a completely bust screen and a permanent and undiagnosed fault.

It wouldn't be so bad if my other laptop wasn't also bust: It's an advent 7090. It needs a new hard disk and carriage, and the ribbon cable which attached the disk to the motherboard is also missing. Can anybody help me ID replacement parts. Matey in the shop says the ribbon cable like all the computers parts will have a number by which it can be identified and I may be able to get a spare. any suggestions?

many thanks

m

 

also -

by the way i see erics post touches on the lcd display thing, I will have another look at your post and try and digest it - any further and specific advice on how i might resolve things with no monitor much appreciated!