Dell Vostro 2521 weird problem

Question

Hello!

My Dell Vostro 2521 does not do any beeps or show anything on the display when started up, only the power on indicator and thr battery charghing indicator light up.

But, if connected to an external display, the laptop displays this weird message for a second, then a blank screen, followed by 8 beeps from the laptop.

What could the problem be?

zSkyer64 · Accepted Answer

Replying to this 2 months later with a solution.

I've seen a YouTube video where they suggested to hold the power button down for ~30 seconds.

Tried it and guess what, the system booted perfectly fine attached to an external display through the HDMI port.

The only downside of this is, of course, the internal display not working.

I suspect maybe the LCD cable got damaged, since I reconnected it in both places and it still doesn't want to detect it.

ejn63 · Answer

8 beeps means the system doesn't detect the internal display panel. Given the other error you're seeing, it looks like a bad GPU -- replace the mainboard.

zSkyer64 · Answer

So to sum it up, I have to replace the entire motherboard?

ejn63 · Answer

If you want to repair the system, yes -- however, give that it's over 10 years old, a replacement system would be a better idea to consider.

zSkyer64 · Answer

Somebody told me to try and unplug the internal display and just use it with an external monitor. Would that work?

nyc10036 · Answer

@ejn63 can correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the Vostro 2521 shares the same motherboard as the Dell Inspiron 5521 and 3521 https://notebookparts.com/dell-inspiron-15-5521-3521-vostro-2521-motherboard-k9pg1-0k9pg1-la-9101p/

If that is true, you may be able to buy a used laptop on eBay that works but that has a shattered LCD.

ejn63 · Answer

The system won't POST without the display attached -- and if it's the GPU that's bad as it appears, that's not going to work even if you do attach an external screen.

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Dell Vostro 2521 weird problem

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