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The Water Cooler
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<blockquote data-quote="flybeech" data-source="post: 2075460" data-attributes="member: 7557"><p>You need to determine if the problem resides in the display, the display illumination or the motherboard. let me suggest that you turn the laptop on and shine a flashlight at various angles to determine if you can see the telltales of the images you would expect. If you can very faintly see images with the flashlight, the display is working and you need to look into the illumination of the display.</p><p></p><p>The display is equipped with a fluorescent bulb that runs the length of the bottom of the screen and is about as big around as a toothpick. The bulb has a ballast that commonly fails and is available on eBay for about $10. Much less commonly, the bulb will fail and is is also available. Almost always, the ballast is the culprit, when you can see faint images with the flashlight.</p><p></p><p>If you cannot see anything with the flashlight on the laptop display, connect the laptop to another display, and power the unit on. If you see nothing, or graphics only in low-resolution VGA, the graphics card on the motherboard has failed. Many HP and Compaq laptops have a cooling system that becomes clogged with dust and the BGA (ball grid array "solder joints") result in a poor connection of a perfectly fine graphics processor and the mobo. In this case, the motherboard needs to come out for a solder re-flow and proper cleaning of the radiator(s) clogged with dust that cause the problem in the first place. There are places listed on eBay that perform the reflow, as well as poor-boy home methods chat can also work. I've had about 25% success reflowing motherboards this way. It would be nice to find a local place with a proper BGA reflow station.</p><p></p><p>Go on YouTube to see how-to videos to rip the laptop apart, to give you confidence to repair the thing yourself. It's just not that hard to perform almost any repair, if you have some mechanical talent and the ability to RTFM. I rather like the problematic HP/Compaq line, since dead ones can be found for almost nothing and repaired. I've identified the part numbers of the latest and greatest, most feature-packed discrete-vid HDMI motherboards, to find they are often easier to find on eBay than the de-featured mobos found in the Best Buy models. Keeping the cooling radiators clean by pinning the cooling fan with a paper clip and blowing with compressed air periodically will prevent the graphics failure. I hope this helps.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="flybeech, post: 2075460, member: 7557"] You need to determine if the problem resides in the display, the display illumination or the motherboard. let me suggest that you turn the laptop on and shine a flashlight at various angles to determine if you can see the telltales of the images you would expect. If you can very faintly see images with the flashlight, the display is working and you need to look into the illumination of the display. The display is equipped with a fluorescent bulb that runs the length of the bottom of the screen and is about as big around as a toothpick. The bulb has a ballast that commonly fails and is available on eBay for about $10. Much less commonly, the bulb will fail and is is also available. Almost always, the ballast is the culprit, when you can see faint images with the flashlight. If you cannot see anything with the flashlight on the laptop display, connect the laptop to another display, and power the unit on. If you see nothing, or graphics only in low-resolution VGA, the graphics card on the motherboard has failed. Many HP and Compaq laptops have a cooling system that becomes clogged with dust and the BGA (ball grid array "solder joints") result in a poor connection of a perfectly fine graphics processor and the mobo. In this case, the motherboard needs to come out for a solder re-flow and proper cleaning of the radiator(s) clogged with dust that cause the problem in the first place. There are places listed on eBay that perform the reflow, as well as poor-boy home methods chat can also work. I've had about 25% success reflowing motherboards this way. It would be nice to find a local place with a proper BGA reflow station. Go on YouTube to see how-to videos to rip the laptop apart, to give you confidence to repair the thing yourself. It's just not that hard to perform almost any repair, if you have some mechanical talent and the ability to RTFM. I rather like the problematic HP/Compaq line, since dead ones can be found for almost nothing and repaired. I've identified the part numbers of the latest and greatest, most feature-packed discrete-vid HDMI motherboards, to find they are often easier to find on eBay than the de-featured mobos found in the Best Buy models. Keeping the cooling radiators clean by pinning the cooling fan with a paper clip and blowing with compressed air periodically will prevent the graphics failure. I hope this helps. [/QUOTE]
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