blank screen - hdd issue?

[thomagreg]

hello chaps,

I'd be grateful if you could help troubleshoot an issue with my samsung r20 laptop. I'm typing this message from my iPhone which, as you can imagine, is quite tiresome.

The laptop isloaded with vista and has been working fine for nearly 2 years. A few days ago I turned it on one morning and there was a blank screen and no other activity. The power is on and it makes the same noises like it's attempting to boot but the hdd light never comes on and I can't here the drive spinning. I therefore can't even get to the bios screen.

My question is - is this a hdd problem or a screen problem? If it's a hdd issue how do I go about confirming that and possibly recovering the data?

Cheers

 

[Hefemeister]

A hard drive issue would not affect your ability to get into bios. You do not even need a hard drive connected to enter bios. try plugging it into a monitor to see if yours has gone out.

 

[thomagreg]

ok

I don't think it's the screen. The screen has since briefly appeared on the samsung splash. It gets to different stages sometimes blank screen and attempts to boot. Other times - particularly when it's a boot from 'cold' it seems to get a little further.

Might this suggest an overheat issue? If something had popped on the mobo surely it would stop at the same place consistently? It's not the hdd as one boot definately engaged the drive.

Appreciate your suggestions.

 

[Hefemeister]

A stupid thing that happened to me was my daughter pressed the lcd/vga button on my laptop. It would start with the lcd screen but then try to display on a monitor that was not connected. On a whim I pressed it and problem fixed.

 

[thomagreg]

Well, I got an error message at last.

"PXE-E61 - media test failure, check cable"

Google suggests it's a bad hdd. I'm still not sure. I thought the system would get to bios without a drive? Here's the weird bit. I managed to get to bios once but when I got there there was no responce from the keyboard and while the date and time was correct the clock had stopped. One I tapped the power button the clock jumped forward by a minute or so then freezes again. There should be a response from the keyboard even if the hdd us dead right? Battery on the mobo? Odd...

 

[Hefemeister]

Ouch. Even if hard drive was bad you could get around in bios just fine. Unfortunately it sounds like some issue with the motherboard. The battery just saves your bios settings and if it was powered up it would not be required. You could try some type of boot disk as a check but I do not believe it would do anything but is worth a shot.

 

[thomagreg]

Ok Im back up and working. No motherboard, screen or HDD issues.

The problem - which I've never encountered before - was that the battery was knackered and while I still had it plugged into the mains it was sucking the power which resulted in the odd behaviour described above. Remove the battery and plug into the mains and there's no problem.

Thanks for the suggestions.