startup problem

pholthau · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:34 pm Post subject: startup problem

Hey Gentooers!

Maybe one of you can assist me in diagnosing the following problem:

Yesterday, I turned off my gentoo powered laptop (dell inspiron 9400) the usual way.
After selecting "shutdown" from the kde menu, it halted regularly.
As I wanted to turn it on again today, it refused to do so. After pressing the power button,
LEDs for power and HDD plus fans turn on, a clicking sound can be heard. After approx. half
a second, the laptop suddenly switches off again. The LCD never showed anything.

I tried to eliminate the usual hardware failure suspects: It also happens with just one RAM bar
or without a hard disk.

What is your guess? Is my core hardware (video, cpu, motherboard) broken? As this is a laptop,
this would be bad diagnostic

Thanks!
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:42 pm Post subject:

pholthau,

If you saw nothing on the LCD, I suspect the back light or the back light inverter.
The inverter might produce a clicking sound if it failed. It provides the high voltage (about 1000v) to drive the LCD back light.

Try to start the system while you shine a very strong light on the screen. If you see something, it will be *very* dim, then the LCD is ok but something is wrong with the back light or its power supply.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

pholthau · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:51 am Post subject:

Hey NeddySeagppm, thanks for your reply.

I'll try to distinguish if there's activity on the screen. But if only the LCD back light is broken, why would the laptop turn itself off?
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The message is Feierei, alder! The message is Gude Laune, alder! [Sven]

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject:

pholthau,

Its the turning off that makes me suspect the inverter is drawing too much current and the internal laptop PSU turns off to prevent further damage.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

pholthau · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:39 pm Post subject:

unfortunately there was nothing to see on the lcd...
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The message is Feierei, alder! The message is Gude Laune, alder! [Sven]

ZeuZ_NG · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:19 am Post subject:

I know this might not sound practical nor economical, but it's definetly the smart choice for recognizing if it's a hardware failure: Take it to a Authorized Techincal Support...

I had a similar problem with the inverter of the backlight with my HP Pavilion dv2000 only that this one would't shutdown even if the screen was black compleately...
Luckily, the guys from Notredam Notebooks managed to fix it in 2 days
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bunder · Bodhisattva Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5947

push your screen flat open, pop off the plastic thing in-between the hinges and the keyboard, and try unplugging the lcd?

(not sure if you're under warranty or not)
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