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General discussion

Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop screen goes blank after 30 seconds

Aug 26, 2009 2:47AM PDT

Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop screen goes blank after 30 seconds

Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop screen goes blank after 30 seconds

I'm trying to fix a friend's computer. It's a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. I can't give more detailed specs because it's not in front of me. The problem is that after about 30 seconds after powering on, the screen goes dark. It happens no matter what - either a normal boot or a boot straight into BIOS. The screen goes completely dark but the power LED stays lit.

Obviously the problem isn't with the LCD/backlight, because the BIOS screen appears fine, although it doesn't stay on. I don't think the problem is with power either because we were running it off AC and the indicator light on the power supply stayed on. Plus the power LED stays lit and according to the BIOS, the battery is at 100%. It happens to consistently to be a loose wire or bad connection.

I have been checking out the different BIOS options, although it is hard when the screen keeps failing. I don't see anything that could cause this.

My theories, not that I am an expert at all, is it could be some kind of a screen saver or power management feature that keeps shutting down the monitor to save the screen or power. By the way, are screen savers even necessary on a laptop? Or perhaps the problem is with the monitor switching feature - we're going to try hooking it up to an external monitor to see what happens.

So what's going on, and how do I fix it?

Discussion is locked

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Loose Monitor?
Aug 26, 2009 2:55AM PDT

I think the external will work but it could be a loose cord that connects to the monitor. Or a loose video card in the laptop if the laptop got shaken it could of happend.

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Over in our troubleshooting forum.
Aug 26, 2009 7:43AM PDT

We discussed how there are about 18 parts in a laptop. In your case what parts are you willing to replace? The suspects are power adapter, battery, and the main board.
Bob

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OK
Aug 26, 2009 8:50AM PDT

Not the main board. I'll try replacing the power adapter and battery. I'll try running it without the power adapter too.

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Did you solve your problem
Oct 22, 2009 9:16PM PDT

Did you solve the problem with your monitor? I have now taken my laptop to the same company twice (hoping they would actually fix it the second time) and they claim to have replaced the backlight timer and backlight but yet same problem. Any advice?

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Try a test.
Oct 22, 2009 11:32PM PDT

Since I can boot and run Ubuntu off a CD I use that to determine if there is some hardware or software issue. Try that.

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original poster
Oct 24, 2009 4:55AM PDT

My "friend" with the laptop decided to dump me a few weeks ago. I no longer keep contact with her and I don't know if she ever got it fixed. I'm sorry, but I won't be reading this topic any more.

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Having the same problem..
Feb 23, 2010 10:12PM PST

If anyone has come up with a solution for this please let me know.

The laptop I am working on had a bad hard drive (It's a Dell Inspiron 6000). I replaced the hard drive and went to reinstall windows (which copied all the files for setup correctly ONCE), and then on reboot (after the bios), the screen just went black. I've tried starting from the cd again to reinstall and the bios shows up fine, but once I boot to cd it goes black again. Does not work on an external monitor (and I know the monitor works fine). And again, I am able to see the bios without a problem - it's just when I try to load the OS that the screen goes completely black.

Thanks,
Robert

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which copied all the files for setup correctly ONCE
Feb 24, 2010 5:39AM PST

That's an odd statement. Are you say it doesn't do that properly anymore?

If so, wipe the drive but first use the link above to the Laptop Troubleshooting Forum and do the deep cleaning noted plus refresh the CPU and other heat sink compounds and mountings.
Bob