My system:
 
Dell Inspiron 8100, P3 1GHz, 15" SXGA, March 2002 vintage
256MB, SDRAM
Video Card:  32MB DDR 4X AGP NVIDIA Geforce 2 Go
Windows 2000 Professional, Version 5.0.2195 Service Pack 4 Build 2195

Currently:
Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A15, 03/03/03
Intel 815E Chipset, Version A00, 05/29/01
Video BIOS Version 3.11.01.44.B4
Video Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce2 Go : ) Ver. 6.13
      (Frankndriver version 28.90, 04/02/2002)

 

 

Just another "black screen" problem where the display is very dim but can be seen when shining a bright light on the screen.  Thought I would check to see if the Inspiron 8100 has a switch that detects when the LCD display panel is closed.  Seems that I've seen in other posts that if the switch is stuck, it can cause a black screen problem.  This is one thing that I haven't checked yet.

 

My problem started a few months ago when I attempted to run a DOS hurricane tracker program.  After trying to run the EXE file, the screen went black and ever since, I've had the problem to recur.  Needless to say, I've not tried to run that program again.  Since then the problem would occur in Windows after I would reboot, the screen would come back black.  Also, there are some other DOS programs that would display graphs that would work okay in Windows but when closing the DOS window, the screen would come back black.  Probably a number of other times it would occur but I think you get the idea.

 

Sometimes hitting the Fn-F8 key helps but not always.  One thing I found from reading other posts was that unplugging the LCD connector then plugging it back in might get the screen to come back and that seems to consistently work.

 

I've just recently cleaned out my system, formatted the hard drive and now trying to reinstall and update  all pertinent bios/drivers.  Once I had completely removed Win 2K and booted from a DOS disk, again the problem with a black screen that I was able to correct by unplugging and plugging the LCD connector.  So even with nothing (no registry) but a Win98 boot disk, I was getting a black screen problem. 

 

I reloaded the OS and got the latest Chipset, System Bios and Geforce 2 Go (ver A18, 44.82, 9/10/2003) updates from Dell but that didn't seem to resolve the problem.  So I removed (and cleaned) Geforce 2 Go ver A18 and now have the Frankndriver ( http://www.cybercookie.net/) installed which I understand is supposed to force LCD output but still no luck.  I've even tried some of the other Geforce modified drivers with no luck.

 

I thought about trying to flash my Video bios but the only one I found ( http://whitebunny.demon.nl/hardware/chipset_nvidia.html) did not match the Dell version exactly though I understand that may not be a big problem.  I did try using VGABIOS to test before flashing and though it didn't seem to cause problems,  I left that alone.

 

Like I've said, the one thing that seems to consistently work is unplugging and plugging the LCD connector so that means I'm having to operate my system with the hinge panel off, something to which I'm hoping to find a better solution.  It almost sounds like a plug-n-play problem but I'm not sure how to confirm/correct that. 

 

So, does the Inspiron 8100 have a LCD panel suspend switch and where would I find it?  Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.