Screen goes black

[Lersar]

I'm looking for some reassurance on this. I have a customer's laptop, it's fairly new but it was one of those purchased online discounted with no warranty deals. The model is an HP G61-632NR, I had done some work on it when he first purchased it, it came in with a faulty CPU fan, replaced it without any problems. It's been several months, probably nearing a year.

Anyway, the laptop is stuck in a boot loop. You can catch a glimpse of a blue screen when it tries to load Windows normally. Safe mode through any manner just cycles back as well. Dealt with plenty of these before, take it back to the office and the first thing I try is accessing the recovery partition to do a system restore. Restore point is found, start it, great. After around ten to twelve minutes, the screen goes black. The LED indicators under the power button and wireless toggle are still on, and fans are still running. Naturally, I fear I just uncovered a back light problem as well. So I hook up an external monitor; no display.

Cross my fingers that it's a fluke, and try it again. Same results. Trying to run any start up repair, it does the same thing. So I test the RAM, and take the hard drive to test it, it comes back fine, no bad sectors or anything (probably nothing to do with the screen but I wanted to cover that base due to the boot loops). Just for the sake of trying, I grab a fresh hard drive an attempt to install Windows on it from the laptop, which leads to the same black screen.

I found a few articles indicating the model is known for faulty batteries, I've tried any combination of adapter only, battery only, adapter + battery, all sharing the same symptom.

There is no pattern or blink codes, either.

So at this point, my thought is that something on the board, probably something in the graphics, is what is causing a blue screen and the reported boot loop as diagnosed by the customer. If it is left to run in a manner without restarting (recovery, etc), the video fails. I even tried to let it sit on the BIOS menu, and sure enough, video dies out.

Any thoughts?

 

[Skillachi]

The problems looks like a faulty motherboard, replace it for better results. this may sound weird but test the laptop charger as well.

 

[Lersar]

I have a universal adapter I use for my laptop, I found the extra heads this morning to give that a shot. Same symptoms.

 

[Eric@noware]

At that point I would check it for heat damage. It kind of sounds like it's shutting down to prevent damage.

Unfortunately that model is known for more than just faulty batteries. Power chargers have known issues, as do the jacks, the gpu has been known to have overheating issues, and the hinge assemblies have been known to be faulty.

Definitely check the charger, as Skillachi said, and then check for heat damage to the board.

Good luck.

 

[PeterH92]

I'm looking for some reassurance on this. I have a customer's laptop, it's fairly new but it was one of those purchased online discounted with no warranty deals. The model is an HP G61-632NR, I had done some work on it when he first purchased it, it came in with a faulty CPU fan, replaced it without any problems. It's been several months, probably nearing a year.

Anyway, the laptop is stuck in a boot loop. You can catch a glimpse of a blue screen when it tries to load Windows normally. Safe mode through any manner just cycles back as well. Dealt with plenty of these before, take it back to the office and the first thing I try is accessing the recovery partition to do a system restore. Restore point is found, start it, great. After around ten to twelve minutes, the screen goes black. The LED indicators under the power button and wireless toggle are still on, and fans are still running. Naturally, I fear I just uncovered a back light problem as well. So I hook up an external monitor; no display.

Cross my fingers that it's a fluke, and try it again. Same results. Trying to run any start up repair, it does the same thing. So I test the RAM, and take the hard drive to test it, it comes back fine, no bad sectors or anything (probably nothing to do with the screen but I wanted to cover that base due to the boot loops). Just for the sake of trying, I grab a fresh hard drive an attempt to install Windows on it from the laptop, which leads to the same black screen.

I found a few articles indicating the model is known for faulty batteries, I've tried any combination of adapter only, battery only, adapter + battery, all sharing the same symptom.

There is no pattern or blink codes, either.

So at this point, my thought is that something on the board, probably something in the graphics, is what is causing a blue screen and the reported boot loop as diagnosed by the customer. If it is left to run in a manner without restarting (recovery, etc), the video fails. I even tried to let it sit on the BIOS menu, and sure enough, video dies out.

Any thoughts?

I had the same problem but with a HP, G62 If there is no image on either the internal or external displays and the computer does not start properly, Its a startup problem and not a display problem.

Perform a hard reset
Disconnect all peripheral devices and remove all USB devices and media cards. You want to test the computer not the accessories!

Disconnect the AC power adapter, remove the battery, and then press and hold the power button for at least 15 seconds.

Reconnect the AC power adapter (but do not connect the battery), Press the Power button, Look for glowing LEDs near caps lock and num lock keys, and Listen for sounds of a disk drive and fan turning.

The hard reset worked for me.

 

[Skillachi]

check out this link directly from HP.com http://tinyurl.com/bvnqcnv

 

[kisk]

Does the external die out within the bios as well? If so I would suspect a motherboard/GPU issue -- probably related to temp. When the video cuts out from a cold boot and you immediately reboot, does the time for it to cut again decrease?

Have you checked temps? Blown out vents? Fan working? New thermal paste/pad on cpu/gpu?

 

[CLC]

I had the same problem but with a HP, G62 If there is no image on either the internal or external displays and the computer does not start properly, Its a startup problem and not a display problem.

Perform a hard reset
Disconnect all peripheral devices and remove all USB devices and media cards. You want to test the computer not the accessories!

Disconnect the AC power adapter, remove the battery, and then press and hold the power button for at least 15 seconds.

Reconnect the AC power adapter (but do not connect the battery), Press the Power button, Look for glowing LEDs near caps lock and num lock keys, and Listen for sounds of a disk drive and fan turning.

The hard reset worked for me.

+1 If this doesn't work just repeat the steps, but leave it powered off longer without the battery and adapter like 30-45 minutes and then hold the power button for at least 60 seconds. I've had this work also, and if that's not the problem I would suspect heat or GPU.

 

[easytechnician]

If I am reading this right, you have no display problems until you are attempting a re-install or restore?

Have you booted to an external media such as mini-xp through a program like Hirens? if it loads fine into that environment with no vid problems then you know it is not a hardware issue. Especially if you run some of the diagnostic or stress tests hirens has on it.

To read the initial post this sounds much more like a corrupt Windows problem than it does a hardware problem without further testing.

The confirmation test would be using a bootable media be it CD or USB and going into a different environment like Mini-XP or Linux and seeing how the video works at that point. That is what I would attempt first to be honest be it the right or wrong it is the least difficult or time consuming. (ADDED) You can also for extra assurances remove the hard drive during this step, sometimes a bad drive can send bad signals causing things to act strange such as systems hanging, freezing etc.... (ADDED)

If the video does the same in the external environment then it could possibly be something as simple as the inverter not being able to hold the signal charge for longer than a few seconds. Those are typically only a few dollars and are often interchangeable between laptops if you find something similar laying around the shop to use for testing. The next would be the cable if there is one that connects the motherboard and the screen, thoroughly examine and check both ends. Many are famous for having come lose or other things some due to heat, others manufacture defect and others even the customers or customer friends having dismantled and made attempt at repairs themselves.

Then of course is the GPU on the board itself, if it were a lamp problem then you should be able to hold a flashlight to the screen at an angle and catch a glimpse of the faded display.