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December 1st, 2021 08:00
Dell Latitude E6530 black screen at start or keyboard initialization error
Hi,
Have here for maintenance a Dell E6530 which was working fine so far and whose screen, at start, now displays once in twenty. (Yesterday was around once in five.)
The rare times it displays, it is showing "Keyboard initialization error".
Yesterday, I could run the BIOS diagnostics and every component was tested as healthy.
I have not waited till the end of the memory and CPU thourough tests, but after some minutes they were still ok.
I successively replaced all these components, coming from working E6530 (E6430 and E6520) laptops :
- RAM sticks, trying one slot a t time, different brands (Nanya, Kingston, Hynix and Samsung) all working in others E6530 / E6430 / E6520.
- Palmrest assembly, with keyboard, touchpad, mouse buttons (from a E6530)
- CMOS battery (two replacements done)
- Main battery
None of these replacements solved the problem.
I can remember than the BIOS was A09.
I also remember that once entered the BIOS, the touchpad was not working.
The keyboard is usually not working, although I could reach the BIOS a very few times.
I can ensure that everything is correctly connected (flex cables, a.s.o.) although I have not put the screws back as still in diagnostics phase.
As ensuring maintenance of more than 30 Dell Latitude (E6530, E6520, E6430, E6420, E6510, E6410, E6500, E6400), I'm usually familiar troubleshouting them, but this time I'm a bit lost about what causes the failure.
Thanks for your help.
ejn63
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December 1st, 2021 10:00
Given that it's an 8-year old system, there are multiple possible causes. If the system is clearly running but the display is black, restart the system holding down the D key. This should initiate a series of self-test screens -- if you see those, it means the screen is likely OK. If not, the screen is next on the replacement list.
If you never see those, the screen could be bad -- shine a bright light on the screen to see if anything appears at all. If you see a faint self-test image, chances are the power supply to the backlight is the issue, and the mainboard will need to be replaced. If you see nothing at all, it's a tossup as to whether you replace the screen or the mainboard -- but given the intermittent nature of the symptoms, I'd make the mainboard the next in line to replace.