Another XPX M1530 black screen

I have a 3 1/2 year old M1530, the other day I got a blue screen of death but after a reboot it has been running fine until yesterday. Now my display is black, I can barely see some graphics on the screen so I'm thinking the backlight died. Hooked it up to an external monitor and that worked fine and I was able to switch back to my laptop screen and it came back on. After an hour or so the screen went black again.

I reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7 (was meaning to do that anyway) and after about an hour or so the same thing happened on the brand new install. Googling around it looks like this is a common problem with this laptop but I can't seem to get a solid answer on what the problem is. Is this a failure of some component on the motherboard? The fact that the external monitor works tells me the graphics card is ok.

Thanks

 

Hi rhody,

Welcome to the community. Sorry to hear about the blank screen issue. It must be very frustrating to deal with these problems. I appreciate that you tried an external monitor to isolate the issue & also reinstalled windows7. Below are few steps I suggest that might help you.

1. This problem might be related to the LCD so we should run diagnostics on the LCD first.

a) On your system under start menu>All programs you might find a folder called ‘Dell support center’. If you find this, click on the folder and then click ‘pc checkup’ icon. Click ‘yes’ if it prompts you for permission to open. Then click on ‘custom scan’ & select monitor test in the list. You need to click on each color and check if there is anything wrong when the screen displays with that solid color. If you don’t find anything wrong LCD is fine.

b) If you do not have Dell support center application on your system, Please download it from the following link - Dell Support Center | Dell

c) We can also run LCD built in self-test. Please follow instructions from the below link -
How to Run the LCD Built-in Diagnostics - KB Article - 272002 | Dell

2. This problem might also be related to the graphics card or its driver.

a) Please download and save latest NVidia driver from Dell support website on the computer. Following is the link to find the driver. Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

b) After downloading the driver, do not run it. Uninstall the old NVidia driver from programs list. Then restart your system and reinstall the latest NVidia driver which you saved earlier.

c) Also try running diagnostics on the video card using Dell support center application. Under custom scan. You will find video card.


Please respond with the status. Waiting to hear from you.


Rakesh R
Social Media Certified Professional
Dell Community
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Thanks, I will try the Dell diagnostics when I get home. I did run the Fn+power test and all tests ran and came back fine.

Odd thing is I turned off any kind of screen savor/standby/turn off display settings and it has been running for a day now just fine. If it was a software issue you would think the reformat would have corrected that?

 

Hi,

Welcome back. I would say, yes sometimes bad screensaver could cause this issue. you should check system functionalty with screen saver turned OFF.

Also I agree, If the problem was software related then operating system reinstalltion should have erased the possibility of this issue caused by any software.

I would request you to run Fn+Power test again & this time when computer asks 'were the color bars displayed'. you should select NO & this will start LCD test then. The test will pass only if you see solid colors coming on the screen one by one.

Please reply back with the test results.


Rakesh R
Social Media Certified Professional
Dell Community
You can reach us at Home - Dell Community
https://twitter.com/#!/dellcares/
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I had this exact same problem with my M1330, no backlight but you can still barely see the screen. Turns out it was a loose LCD connection. The display connector is at the bottom center of the screen, right behind the Dell logo. You will need to take your computer apart to get to this connection; when you do, simply reseat the connector. I then used some electrical tape to keep the connector from coming off again. No issues since this happened to me 1+ years ago.

My logic on why this is an intermittent problem: when you rotate the screen open and closed, that action probably seats/unseats the display cable slightly, so sometimes you have a black screen, sometimes you don't.

 

Thanks, I will give it a go taking it apart and checking the connections, I'll post back on how it goes.

 

Hi Rhody,

If you want to try reseating the LCD cable. Let me help you with the steps required.

1. Disconnect ac adapter & all external devices.
2. Remove Battery from underneath the laptop.
3. Removing the 4 screws securing the hard drive from bottom of laptop.
4. Remove the hard drive from the side of the laptop.
5. Need to remove the central control cover & hinge covers.

Please use the following link to get the step by step instructions.

Documentation

Rakesh R
Social Media Certified Professional
Dell Community
You can reach us at Home - Dell Community
https://twitter.com/#!/dellcares/
https://wwww.facebook.com/dell

 

Ok I ran the fn+power then said I did not see any colored bars, it ran the LCD diagnostics and I saw all the different colors flash by then all I got was an "error 0334" and "2000-0334" which basically just said the error was because I said I did not see any colored bars, don't think this helps.

I then used the directions to reseat the LCD cable, powered it back on and saw the Dell BIOS screen then the screen went black again.

I'm thinking this thing is done and I need to start looking for a replacement

 

I may be beating a dead horse, but did you put tape on the LCD cable connector to ensure it has no chance of coming loose again? I took mine apart, reseated it, thought it was fine, then my black screen came back a day later. So I took it apart again, and not only taped the connector to the LCD screen, but also balled some tape up and squished it in the space below where the connector fits in the display bezel to ensure there was no chance of coming loose again. No issues since.

 

I'll double check when I get home but a loose cable wouldn't explain why it works until the system turns the monitor off then it won't come back on. The screen going blank wouldn't pull out a cable you know? So this lead me to believe it might be software because it works fine until either a screensaver kicks in or the display powers off after the alloted time but I did a clean reformat and the problem was back right away.

It also works on an external display so I'm guessing some hardware component of the backlight is failing out

 

Hi,

Have you tried flashing new BIOS from dell support website. Please try that once for your computer.
Also make sure there is no magnetic thing near to the system.

Regards,
Dell-Rakesh R

 

Well, I think I can rule out a software problem. I taped down the ribbon connector like you suggested then installed Ubuntu, same thing happened the first time the display turned off after 10 minutes

 

Yes I am running the most current BIOS

 

Please try this.

First reinstall windows back on the laptop.
Connect external monitor to the laptop & keep it in duplicate mode.
In duplicate display mode you will see same display on both the screens.
Do some work on the system & wait until the screen goes black.
If you see both the displays going black, problem with the graphics card.
If you see only the laptop display going black, problem is with laptop LCD screen.

Please do reply back.

Regards,
Dell-Rakesh R

 

The external display came back on, the LCD did not

 

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed response.

If your system is under warranty, we can get the LCD screen replaced.
Please check the warranty details by clicking on the below link.

http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/ProductSelector

You can also give me your system service tag information via private message.

Thanks,
Dell-Rakesh R