HP Mini 110 weird video problem

[danmarki]

thread602-1658489

Hi everyone, I'm having the EXACT SAME problem as member "ciscotim" had.
Since the thread was closed, I was hoping to hear back from him on how he managed to solve it. Was it the LCD or the mainboard finally?



20 Aug 11 18:56
Hi all -

I have an HP Mini 110 with a weird display issue-

When powered up, it shows nothing but vertical colored lines on the
righthand half of the display, sort of like a colored barcode.

There are no readable characters at all, the lefthand side of the screen is totally blank.


Now - I know your FIRST assumption is "the LCD is bad"



BUT -- one of the primary tests for bad LCD display is to plug in an external monitor and do the keyboard shortcut to make the system switch to using the external display.

On the dozens of laptops I've repaired over the years, because that's a BIOS call (not booted software)
that _always_ works in order to switch to the external display and test the rest of the system.

But this system will _not_ switch to the external display either -

I've bought a brand new MB off Ebay and put it in - which replaces the entire video subsystem; there's not a separate video card.

Same problem.

BTW - the screen and case are in perfect condition - absolutely no signs of external damage or mistreatment.

At one point, on an external monitor, the system switched ONE time to an external display. Then it would never do it again.

By the way, the HD chitters intermittently and the HD access light flickers, looking for all the world like a normal boot process.
The system will pull a DHCP address from my network and will ping, so I know it's able to boot correctly.
(Unfortunately it's a Win7 Home, so no remote desktop)

It really appears that the only system malfunction is this weird display issue.

I've never seen an LCD display "block" the mainboard BIOS functions that switch to an external display- that's always worked for me to test the main system.
The failure to switch was why I replaced the mainboard thinking "ok, for this once, it's NOT the LCD, it's something with the video processor - the display is showing exactly what it's being sent- garbage"

Thoughts anyone?

 

[rclarke250]

The line issue you are describing, is 99.9% the lcd panel. It may also have a bad inverter card that is interfering with the switch which may be a part of the whole lcd module, and not a seperate board.

 

[danmarki]

So, the inverter could be the culprit why it does NOT show any video (display) on external monitor as well? That's the weird part. Cause when I saw the lines my first tought was LCD was bad. But then when I connected it to external monitor and no display was shown I was stunned.

 

[danmarki]

I've tried the "baking in the owen" trick with the motherboard today. No change in behaviour after reasembly. Still lines on original monitor, no video on external. Anybody?

 

[rclarke250]

The issue with the ven trick" is dealing with an Nvidia 8xxx chip that has an issue with the ball grid array not being properly soldered, and so can become unsoldered in spots. This doe not happen if you have a board that uses AMD, or Intel integrated video. I didn't look up the specs of your board so I don't know if your system could be affected by this. But the "oven trick" is not the way to go about fixing it. It should be sent to a company that can re-ball the chip correctly.

 

[mscallisto]

what happens when you boot in safe mode?

sam

 

[danmarki]

Yes, you are correct "rclarke250", I have an Intel chip and thus nothing is changed after the oven business . But I tought I'd give it a try. Its got to be something about the LCD, but it could be also the motherboard/GPU as far as I see.
As for the safe mode, I can't get the darn thing to post or boot. Just the CPU fan starts and after half-a-second it stops spinning, although all the LEDs are still lit but no sounds can be heard. Both original monitor and external show no signal (original monitor has vertical lines all over, but no signs of damage). Its really a very wierd thing. I've tried switching to external monitor by pressing Fn+F2 key (with symbol for external monitor) but no change. I've also tried turning the laptop on with external monitor connected while the lid was shup (so it switches automatically) but no change. Please help ppl

 

[rclarke250]

OK, I thought you had lines while the machine was booted up. But it now looks like it is not posting, and the trip to the oven most likely didn't help. I would think it's a bad motherboard if you can't get it to post.

 

[danmarki]

Actually, it sounds like it isn't posting. But since I can't get it to show any display on internal or external display I can't be sure it isn't posting. No beeps are heard though. And cause the cpu fan stops after a sec my guess would be that it in fact is NOT posting.

 

[mscallisto]

have you disconnected all peripherals except maybe the keyboard; e.g drives (except boot), monitor, memory etc.

I know that without the monitor you can't see any boot confirmation but you should be able to see if the disk light is blinking and maybe hear some memory beeps which could indicate a post and boot are happening.

If that seems to work then start connecting your peripherals one at a time between boots to see if one periph is the problem.

just a guess.

Sam

 

[danmarki]

Yes, I've disconnected everything. I'm not even sure there is a speaker that can been. Can't see anything that resembles a speaker. So maybe its beeping but it cannot be heard