Laptop, dead lamp in screen

[smoreau 658]

On March 29th (thur) I come home and went to turn on my laptop and check the screen wasn't working. It would blink on and the shut off. So I thought that the hole thing was dead due to some virus of some thing. Then I remembered that it has a monitor plug on the side, so I plugged it into my desk top monitor and every thing was working but the screen Then I noticed that the screen was working, but very, very dim to the point that you could just make out some of the things on the screen if the light behind me was just right. So I went online with the desk top and checked out what could cause this. I found out that it has a lamp out in the screen and the fix is a new screen So I check evil bay and enter my model # and make of laptop and I get several hits. Found one shipped to the door for $77 so I bought it. They sell lots of screens for laptops and they are all brand new. They had great feed back. and all the #s matched as I thought they should have.

Well it come in the mail tonight and I take the laptop apart to replace the screen. WOW there is a LOT OF SCREWS to take this apart. After about a hour I have the screen in my hands and take the new one out of the box, and its the wrong one. :banghead: Now I sent a massage to the seller on the problem, and I hope O don't have to weight too long to get the correct on as I might not remember how this thing goes back together is how I feel right know! I did get my daughter the same exact laptop and it has my hard drive in it right know as she has been grounded from her laptop tell this weekend. That means that I will be stuck on the old slow desk top tell this issue is fixed. Any one else had a lamp go out for there screen. this is the first that I have herd of this.

[AMC RULES 37,102]

What brand laptop is it Scott?

[can whlvr 993]

ive not had good luck with lap tops,i wish i could afford the apple one my buddy has,its very stout and he says they have very few problems

[smoreau 658]

Its a Compaq, just a cheeper model, But has a lot of info on it and I'm not wanting to buy a new one at this time. I might just put it back together and plug in the 19" flat screen from the desk top and the usb key board and mouse and use it like that for know until I get this screen issue fixed.

[Trouty56 565]

I used a little 10 inch Asus web book like that for a few months....worked better than my desktop. Had a 1.5 terabyte hard drive in one usb and wireless keyboard and mouse in the other. Had it hooked up to a 22" led monitor. Ran on win 7. Little thing rocked.

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,156]

I have had such bad luck with Compaq / HP laptops, I have 3 of them still and only 1 works properly. My HP laptop problem is that the motherboards go bad and often. My work Lenovo's seem to be better, but I had a lamp die on one of those too. My MacBook Pro has been trouble free though.

[smoreau 658]

Just trying to keep cost down right know as I want to buy a house in the next few months and I'm saving for a down payment. Houses are going cheep and interest rates are low! This is the time to buy and I'm not ready yet. I want 20% down to stay away from PMI insurance!

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,156]

On *some" screens the lamp is replaceable, but that is usually a more in-depth repair. Be careful with that ribbon cable that it doesn't get torn or broken, in many instances, that cable is not available separately.

[smoreau 658]

I have seen small plugs on cars computers before, but these plugs are small!! I just hope I can get it back together with out braking the ribbon or plugs

[DoctorHfuhruhurr 137]

I had a lamp blow out on a Lenovo.

I've found that using a laptop cooler similar to below helps extend the life and performance a lot. Laptops get really hot and the heat will cause it to have issues over time.

[rmaynard 15,294]

I have had such bad luck with Compaq / HP laptops, I have 3 of them still and only 1 works properly. My HP laptop problem is that the motherboards go bad and often. My work Lenovo's seem to be better, but I had a lamp die on one of those too. My MacBook Pro has been trouble free though.

I will agree with that. I just bought a new HP Pavilion G6 laptop on January 22, and on February 23 the motherboard and the processor both failed. Although it was repaired under warranty, I was without my laptop for almost a month. Prior to that I owned another HP Pavilion that constantly ate up the connector for the power cord. The final demise was the hard drive total failure. Maybe I have learned my lesson with HP.

@ DoctorHfuhruhurr - The cooler is almost mandatory with the newer laptops. A hotter running quad core processor with a smaller cooling fan is what killed my latest HP. These are definitely NOT laptop computers. Place them on your lap, or anywhere other than a hard, smooth surface and they will burn up.

[perry 82]

bummer to hear that scott. hope you get it back working soon.

I had a simuliar promblem . a few times i would leave my laptop on all day and into the evening. the one time i did about a month or so ago and left it on when i carried it into the house from garage. later that night i started haveing promblems with the screen going on and off. next morning i turned it on and screen was pretty much dead. the promblem was it got so hot the video chip on the mother board broke free from the solder.

This is how i fixed my 2005 gateway laoptop. i took the mother board out and wraped it in a few layers of tin foil. cut out a open square around the video card. made four 1" foil balls and set them on a cookie sheet. placed the motherboard on top of foil balls. preheat the oven to 385 and baked it for about 11 minutes. carefully pulled it out and let cool for 45 minutes.that reactivates the solder and sucks the video card back down. i reinstalled the mother board and placed a 1964 penny ontop of the video card chip with heat sink grease. then screwed down the copper tube and fan assembly over top the penny. the older copper penny helps draw heat out of the video card. got everything back together and has been running great. just yesterday i again left my laptop on all day untill 11pm last night with no promblems. most of the time i do try and shut it down thru out the day just to let it cool.

and yes there is alot of little screws and tiny plug/connectors. when i put it all back together i had one screw left over. you allways have one screw left over on the job right ? ...LOL

[AMC RULES 37,102]

Does it have to be a '64 penny Perry...can you substitute with a '63 in a pinch?

Kidding of course...how did you know you could cook your mother board without fear of cooking it permanently?

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,156]

I think that a lot of the idle load on the computers is the Windows overhead. I am on my work laptop and with just this window open, my e-mail and VPN connection software my dual core i5 processor runs 8-15% with 68% memory utilization (6GB installed). In contrast the Mac runs 1% with 22% memory utilization (4GB installed)

The Lenovo is like having a little heater sitting on my lap, where as the Mac generates very little heat and doesn't require a cooling pad.

[perry 82]

Does it have to be a '64 penny Perry...can you substitute with a '63 in a pinch?

I'm kidding of course...how did you know you could cook your mother board without fear of cooking it?

well when it comes to stuff breaking down i am CHEAP and wont go buy new unless i have to. search RS for my battery charger post a few years ago. lot of guys told me to buy a new one. well new is not allways better and my old charger is a expensive one to replace for that model and it is a beast with 24V boost. i got one of the old farmers on another forum walk me thru the repair and fixed it. also that is why i allready had a tube of heat sink compound laying around to fix the laptop .

for the laptop i research and watched many videos of different ways to repair. heat gun was one of them , but a little to extreme . also seen hair dryer trick. but i think bakeing it was the best.allowing the chip to slowly settle back in place. and pre 80's pennys have more copper in them.

[AMC RULES 37,102]

What some people can do is amazing. :bow-blue:

[perry 82]

I think that a lot of the idle load on the computers is the Windows overhead. I am on my work laptop and with just this window open, my e-mail and VPN connection software my dual core i5 processor runs 8-15% with 68% memory utilization (6GB installed). In contrast the Mac runs 1% with 22% memory utilization (4GB installed)

The Lenovo is like having a little heater sitting on my lap, where as the Mac generates very little heat and doesn't require a cooling pad.

hey karl, do you know of a decent download program that monitors the motherboard temperature / fan speed control .

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,156]

I don't, on my work laptop it's running Windows 7 and there's a widget for CPU and memory which is all I use.

[DoctorHfuhruhurr 137]

I think that a lot of the idle load on the computers is the Windows overhead. I am on my work laptop and with just this window open, my e-mail and VPN connection software my dual core i5 processor runs 8-15% with 68% memory utilization (6GB installed). In contrast the Mac runs 1% with 22% memory utilization (4GB installed)

The Lenovo is like having a little heater sitting on my lap, where as the Mac generates very little heat and doesn't require a cooling pad.

hey karl, do you know of a decent download program that monitors the motherboard temperature / fan speed control .

try speedfan http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php