Hardware Is my brother's laptop busted?

Shorkio · Jun 10, 2015

Hello!

My brother has been using Dell's Precision M4500- laptop for few years now without any problems. However, recently it has started acting up. Laptop's display shows BIOS and Window's booting animation just fine, but then screen goes completely black. He has force-rebooted laptop a few times to get it working, but now that won't work either. Image shows up to the external display though.

The laptop has i7 CPU (can't remember the exact model number) and Nvidia Quadro FX 880M GPU. I have disassembled laptop several times now and cleaned everything inside. Is there anything I can do to safe it?

Foxi4 · Jun 10, 2015

There's a couple of things you could try. I'd start by checking if it'll run in Safe Mode (just spam F8 during boot) - perhaps it's just the video driver that's acting up and loading up standard Windows drivers will make the screen work once again, allowing you to fix the issue by reinstalling the drivers. If that's not the case, I'd prep a Windows installation USB/disc and check if the installer boots up. If it does, you could attempt using System Recovery. If this is not a hardware issue, the worst-case scenario is just reinstalling the OS.

Originality · Jun 10, 2015

If the laptop display shows the BIOS and Windows startup screens just fine before blanking out (but still shows fine on an external display), then it rules out most hardware problems.

The most common cause is if Windows has been set to output to the external display. This can be checked by pressing the Fn button and the corresponding F button (sometimes F3 or F7 - the one with the display picture on it) to try and cycle video output back to the laptop display.

If that doesn't work, it's likely to be a driver problem. Rolling back the driver (through Device Manager) is the easiest way, as it should switch to a more stable driver. If not, you may need to uninstall the driver and download new driver from the laptop brand website.

Failing that, system restore/recovery or just reinstalling Windows should help.

Foxi4 · Jun 10, 2015

Originality said:
If the laptop display shows the BIOS and Windows startup screens just fine before blanking out (but still shows fine on an external display), then it rules out most hardware problems.

The most common cause is if Windows has been set to output to the external display. This can be checked by pressing the Fn button and the corresponding F button (sometimes F3 or F7 - the one with the display picture on it) to try and cycle video output back to the laptop display.

If that doesn't work, it's likely to be a driver problem. Rolling back the driver (through Device Manager) is the easiest way, as it should switch to a more stable driver. If not, you may need to uninstall the driver and download new driver from the laptop brand website.

Failing that, system restore/recovery or just reinstalling Windows should help.

I didn't think of external displays, that's a fair point. If he has an HDMI cable laying around, he can very easily test that.

Shorkio · Jun 11, 2015

Thanks for quick replies! I'll try those when I wake up!
E: Alright. When I uninstalled Nvidia's drivers image came back to laptop's display. However, when I try to install any version of GPU's driver (oldest, newest, let Windows to install them) the screen goes black again. Looks like I have to try to do system recovery next.

Originality · Jun 11, 2015

Are you installing them from nVidia's site, or from Dell's site?

Shorkio · Jun 11, 2015

Originality said:
Are you installing them from nVidia's site, or from Dell's site?

I've done both now and no avail. I've even formatted the hard drive (it was pretty empty anyways, just Google Chrome and Steam installed) and it still has the same problem.

GreatCrippler · Jun 11, 2015

Sounds like the OS is corrupt, or the hard drive died.

Originality · Jun 13, 2015

Another thing you can try is downloading an older driver from the Dell website. I have an Acer laptop where the laptop display only works with the oldest driver, and if I try to install any newer driver (there were 4 updates afterwards) then I would lose the laptop display (the hardware manager wouldn't even detect it).

Shorkio · Jun 14, 2015

Originality said:
Another thing you can try is downloading an older driver from the Dell website. I have an Acer laptop where the laptop display only works with the oldest driver, and if I try to install any newer driver (there were 4 updates afterwards) then I would lose the laptop display (the hardware manager wouldn't even detect it).

Alright, I'll try that later.

Jaggent360 · Jul 2, 2015

Wow, someone still has the quadro! Btw, if the image is fine on a external source, try replacing the screen.

WiiCube_2013 · Jul 2, 2015

GreatCrippler said:
Sounds like the OS is corrupt, or the hard drive died.

Yeah, sounds like the HDD's took a walk but he could purchase a used one since they're not going for much nowadays and reinstall his preferred OS.

Qtis · Jul 3, 2015

Jaggent360 said:
Wow, someone still has the quadro! Btw, if the image is fine on a external source, try replacing the screen.

You do know that Quadro and GTX have completely different markets? A gaming PC will benefit more from the GTX, but a CAD/FEM PC will do shit with the same configuration. You should never mix home and enterprise with each other as the requirements and needs are very different.

Jaggent360 · Jul 5, 2015

Qtis said:
You do know that Quadro and GTX have completely different markets? A gaming PC will benefit more from the GTX, but a CAD/FEM PC will do shit with the same configuration. You should never mix home and enterprise with each other as the requirements and needs are very different.

Yiiiiii, i knew.

Hardware Is my brother's laptop busted?

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