3 Posts
0
2338
Is this poor old XPS M1210 finally dead?
I'm using a Dell XPS M1210, purchased sometime in the Middle Ages. It has been functioning quite well as a nightlight and jukebox. Then, apropos of nothing, the screen went dark.
I plug in an otherwise working external monitor. For some reason, the external monitor remains dark, even though the laptop's screen does light up for a moment -- albeit in orange print -- when it is first booting.
The laptop's display otherwise remains black, except that once or twice it has flickered briefly, again in orange, showing some apparently diagnostic text that is gone before I have a chance to detect what it is.
Holding or repeatedly hitting Esc, F1, F2, F8, F10, F12, or Del during bootup seems to have no effect. Likewise attempting to boot a live Linux USB.
I would assume the motherboard is dead, but I'm seeing intermittent hard disk and WiFi LED activity.
In short, I do get a very brief orange splashscreen when it first boots, but that's almost the only sign of life from any display. Other diagnostic ideas? A prognosis?
Tech Handicap
41 Posts
0
April 15th, 2019 04:00
Sounds like the motherboard. Is there anyway you can check the integrity, stability, etc., of the hard drive? I don't know that the intermittent activity means that motherboard isn't dead. Good luck.
raywood2
3 Posts
0
April 17th, 2019 14:00
I guess it must be the motherboard. The hard drive checks out OK in CrystalDiskInfo.
raywood2
3 Posts
0
April 24th, 2019 22:00
For posterity: more specifically, I think it's the motherboard's video circuit. I just reformatted the hard drive and restored a working drive image. It made the sounds of booting Windows XP; the hard drive light ran as expected; but the only video I saw was, as before, the initial BIOS bootup screen, in orange; otherwise it was dark; and that was also the situation when I tried two different external monitors via the VGA cable.
darkswordsman995
1 Message
0
December 5th, 2020 09:00
If you deem that the reason, I'd suggest getting something such as a windows repair disk.
I had a very similar, if not identical case with the hard drive of another laptop and used a windows 7 repair disk on amazon. the drive is perfectly well although not currently in use
the disk is pretty intuitive when you boot to it and can be used to reinstall any version of windows 7 or do a repair, but it does not come with a product key
https://www.amazon.com/Ralix-Reinstall-Windows-Versions-Recover/dp/B07ZPCNJC1