Weird laptop video issue

[Rocco]

Customer calls, tells me that she thinks her daughter dropped the laptop, and now when they turn it on, they get nothing but a grey screen. Her daughter denies dropping it. I pick it up, notice that I can just barely see the windows safe mode select screen. It won't let me press enter, or do anything further. It is Windows 7. The full grey screen starts out at BIOS.

So I take it home, expecting to take it apart. First thing I do though is I want to see how bad the problem is, so I plug in an external monitor, and turn on the computer. The screen starts out grey, and stays that way until the safe mode select screen comes up. But I am able to see that screen just fine, so I choose regular mode because I wanted to see what it does. As soon as I hit enter, the laptop screen is completely cleared, and shows Windows booting up.

I cannot duplicate the problem, I have tried to make it do it. I now think that it was a software issue, not that the computer was dropped. However, I do not know that. I do not know what the problem was. I do not understand why it went away as soon as I plugged in another monitor. I cannot with confidence say I fixed this computer, so is that exactly what I tell the customer? I don't know what was wrong, I don't know how it got fixed. I don't know if you will see it again. Here's my diagnose fee, please pay it.

Have you guys ever seen this? Did you find out what the problem was? How would you handle the customer?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Might help if you bothered to mention what brand and model of laptop......

 

[Rocco]

HP Pavillion G6

 

[nlinecomputers]

I would guess a heat related issue. Need to run it for some time and get it hot and also test when it has cooled down to room temp.

 

[Rocco]

I would guess a heat related issue. Need to run it for some time and get it hot and also test when it has cooled down to room temp.

It sat untouched all 3 day weekend when it was first turned on today, with the gray screen.

 

[coffee]

I agree this is probably a heat issue. Daughter is on her bed with laptop and surfing the net. Laptop does a hard shutdown because of heat and daughter probably kept trying to turn it on. I have seen alot of these.

I would think its going to be a MB replacement on it.

Just in case, Have you booted an other operating system on it from CD or USB? See if your getting the same results. Or go into bios and see if the screen still has issues. Thats what I would do next. If the problems are still there then its most likely a MB issue.

coffee

 

[Rocco]

I can't duplicate it now. It duplicated on the bench when I first turned it on. Then I plug in a monitor, and it hasn't duplicated since.

 

[Rocco]

Note, it still won't duplicate when I unplug monitor.

 

[nlinecomputers]

It sat untouched all 3 day weekend when it was first turned on today, with the gray screen.

Some heat related issues improve with heat. Cold solder joints can warm up and make contact and then break again cold. Rare but I've seen it once or twice.

 

[Megaarch]

Could this not be a resolution issue? Plugging in the monitor changed/defaulted to the correct res, and now that is why it's also working on the lappy screen?

 

[Rocco]

Could this not be a resolution issue? Plugging in the monitor changed/defaulted to the correct res, and now that is why it's also working on the lappy screen?

Can you change the resolution that shows on the bios boot screen?

 

[Frozwire]

It's also possible that the Function Key for Multiple display options was accidentally switched causing the native display to display a greyed screen thus plugging an external display have enabled it back to restore to its default display settings.

 

[Rocco]

I returned the laptop, spent way too much time on it trying to duplicate it. Charged my diagnose fee, didn't feel right charging for 3 hours when I didn't accomplish anything except that the laptop works now. I was honest and upfront with her, told her I have no idea why it was acting up. Showed her it was working. Also, I told her that if it does it again, find out exactly what her daughter was working on when it came back. I guess I will throw this one in my mystery pile, which unfortunately keeps growing.

 

[dombooth]

If it's a G6 IMO they run far too hot.

Dom