Strange B130 display problem

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm helping my cousin out with his b130. When turned on, the screen displays a bunch of garbage. This happens from the start, so I don't think it's a driver issue or anything like that. He said it happened while on a web page, but I don't know whether that has anything to do with it. You can see a picture of what I'm talking about at

http://www.personal.psu.edu/aja5043/laptop.jpg

Any ideas what this might be?

radiov8 · Answer

Actually, that was the first thing I tried- hooked up the analog out of the laptop to that of my 20" samsung LCD. No signal from the laptop, but I don't know if that's just because it wasn't configured for a multiple monitor setup.

Also, the machine shut itself down a couple of times shortly after turning on.

I'm thinking this is probably something wrong on a hardware level deeper than just the cables, and in any case, it's still within warranty, so I'll probably tell him to RMA it.

Do you know how Dell treats return laptops (in terms of reformatting/data integrity)? He doesn't want to lose his files, so I don't know whether I'll need to find a 2.5"-3.5" adapter in order to pull his stuff off (mainly music). Although I suppose if all his napster and iTunes files still have DRM on them, they might not still work anyway...

ejn63 · Answer

Attach an external monitor. Does the same show up?

Yes: reseat the video cable inside the system. If that doesn't fix it, the video (which on this model means the mainboard) is toast.

No: the LCD panel is faulty.

radiov8 · Answer

By the way, thanks for your quick response. I really appreciate the input.

ejn63 · Answer

Remove the hard drive before sending the system for service. Also find a way to back up the data - having a single copy of data on a single hard drive is an invitation to disaster.

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Strange B130 display problem

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