Screen Won't Turn On

Question

I have an Inspiron 5100 and usually, when I leave, I just close the lid. When I come back after a few hours, the lcd won't come back on. I try moving the mouse, I press keys, I do everything I can think of to turn it back on, but it never works. I restart the system and the lcd works fine. That gets annoying though having to do it everyday. Any idea on what my problem is? I have hibernation, suspend, and standby all turned off. It is really confusing me.

Thanks in advance,
JAH

Datawatch99 · Answer

Also, one more thing, I forgot to ask, how are you 'restarting the system' ?? Are you pressing the power button and the system is starting up as if from a cold boot (going thru the POST, BIOS, etc) or are you getting the XP log on screen almost immediately, or are you getting a DOS screen saying 'resuming windows'. If you could tell us how the system is 'restarted' it will help us.

Datawatch99 · Answer

Make sure you have power saving turned off in BIOS as well as Windows. Also, are you leaving the notebook on while hooked up to power? If not, it could be something as simple as the battery going dead. I know it sounds stupid, but I worked in tech support for another computer company for 3 years, and sometimes customers would miss the smallest things by overthinking the problem.

JAH234 · Answer

I am pressing the power button, it is going through normal cold bootup i guess you'd call it. I'm not sure if i want to do any bios stuff, just for the fact i might screw it up. And yes, I am leaving the notebook on while hooked up to power so it isn't the battery. Message Edited by JAH234 on 06-12-2003 04:57 PM

Datawatch99 · Answer

Sounds odd. The power savings mode in BIOS on my Inspiron will only allow suspend, not hibernate or do a total shutdown. Also, when the battery dies, either in active mode or suspended mode, the laptop automatically hibernates. When you press the power button, it says at the bottom of the screen "resuming windows", thats how I know it was in hibernation mode (all RAM contents are copied to the disk and power is shut off completely).

The power savings options in Windows XP home will only allow suspend or hibernate, it wont shut off the laptop as if it had lost power. I suspect some sort of automatic schedule program that is running in the background that can shut off the laptop after a certain amount of non-use. If you haven't installed anything like that, then there is probably some sort of malfunction in the laptop.

JAH234 · Answer

Yeah, i'm not going to worry about this for the moment...it has screwed up even more. Won't fully boot up, and doesn't shut down. Dell has me trying to repair XP, that might fix this. I don't know, all these problems are really getting my upset and mad, i spent almost all my money to get this laptop, and now this.

JAH

Datawatch99 · Answer

A quick test to tell if its an operating system (windows xp) malfunction or hardware, boot to a floppy disk to DOS, close the lid and check it the next day. If it has shut down, XP has nothing to do with it, its probably hardware.

If your not sure how to boot to DOS, find a system with Windows 98 or earlier and make a boot disk by putting in a blank disk and open a DOS window and type FORMAT A: /S

This will create a bootable disk and let you boot to an a:> prompt.

JAH234 · Answer

Well, first of all, the 5100 doesn't come with an internal floppy, and i didn't opt to buy the external. And, I reinstalled XP tonight on another matter so we'll find out one way or another. JAH

kevinbrennan23 · Answer

Hello, I am having the exact same problem with my 5100. I had my dell for a year before this started happening. I go to standby and when I attempt to return, I can hear the computer start again, but no screen. I reboot using the power button and it starts as usual. I love standby and do not want to go without it. Plus I don't thing I should have to.

If anyone has found help for this, please let me know, thanks

Kevin Brennan

kevinbrennan23 · Answer

Hello, I am having the exact same problem with my 5100. I had my dell for a year before this started happening. I go to standby and when I attempt to return, I can hear the computer start again, but the screen won;t come on. I reboot using the power button and it starts as if there was no problem. I love standby and do not want to go without it. Plus I don't thing I should have to.

If anyone has found help for this, please let me know, thanks

Kevin Brennan

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Screen Won't Turn On

Was this post helpful?