Damn The Man
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Could anything else I touch break?
Let's review:
On the way back from G-Vegas my car broke down and I ended up stuck in po-dunk needing a tow truck and a ride at 9pm on Sunday. This after leaving G-Vegas at 3pm on a trek home that should have only taken 3 hours. The tow was $50 (not bad actually) and I got home after 11pm absolutely whooped. Thank goodness I had Monday off. Lets just say I did absolutely no labor on Labor Day.
The bill to fix the car ended up being $700, which was actually not bad for what was done, but extremely painful to our pocket. Oh well.
Moving on...Last night really put my nerves to the test. I had been online for about an hour just horsing around (not the poker game) when all of a sudden my laptop screen went blank. I could tell the computer part of the laptop was still working because I had music playing in the background and I heard the noise that Yahoo IM makes when someone sends a chat message.
This "blackout" was not at the best of times considering it was 8:45pm and I had already signed up for the Tanner Evers Charity Tourney scheduled at 10:00pm. I was able to get the screen to barely show for about a minute, but that was the end of it. In the end my laptop screen is on the fritz. This really pisses me off considering I've had the laptop for less than 2 years.
Has anyone else ever had this happen where their laptop screen just went blank even though the computer is still running ok? Is it an easy fix or am I screwed? I really know nothing about this, but I'm hoping it is not an expensive fix. I bought it at Best Buy and don't think I purchased a warranty. Should I take it back to the store to have their service group fix it up?
As for the tourney last night, I was unable to play, but probably finished higher than I would have if I had played. I was not pissed about the missed buy-in since it was for charity, but it still bugs me cause I really wanted to play the tourney with you guys. To everyone who played at my table, sorry I missed it and I hope you enjoyed my blinds. Bastardos!
Next up on the broken list was my poker game. Since I've been back from G-Vegas, I've been slapped in the face left and right. I won't go into details cause I don't dig bitching about poker in this brog. I will say I can't recall having so many pair over pair 4 to 1 favorites go down in flames.
One thing I'm pretty proud of is I no longer let everyone and their greasy granny know when I'm running bad or tilting. Every time I've taken a slap in the face this past week, I've just shaken my head in silence and moved on. Even the wifey has no idea I'm running bad.
Well that's gonna have to do it. I don't think I bitch too often in this here brog, so thanks for sticking with me while I let off a little steam and get a few things out.
I would seriously appreciate any help you techie geeks can give about my laptop. It is an HP and I don't remember the exact model, though I can find it. In fact, I did a post about it when I bought it so if need be I can search for it.
posted by TripJax @ 9:30 AM,
11 Comments:
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At 10:01 AM,
Unknown said...
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Mike "the mouth" suggests throwing it into a pool.
I heard it works wonders. -
At 1:35 PM,
said...
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Sorry you couldn't be there last night...Damn computers...
It sounds like the actual display on the laptop. Try connecting the laptop to an external monitor and see if it displays. If that works, you know the video card is fine and then it's probably a connection on the display. Hit me up on IM for further TS. -
At 1:48 PM,
said...
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Ouch, that's a pretty bad run of "broken things"...
...as for the laptop: what mookie said, if it works with an external source (if it doesn't work instantly, make sure to switch displays to external (there's usually a hotkey function for that as the standard usually is set at internal)) it's probably the screen... -
At 2:27 PM,
said...
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I had a Compaq laptop that suffered from a similar malaise a while back - the problem turned out to be an inferior connector between the video card and the screen. The sucky thing is they'd issued a service bulletin/recall for the business model, which differed from my consumer model in the application of a particular decal, but not for mine. Construction and parts on both were exactly the same.
Fixing the connector would be cheaper than replacing the screen, but it's still not cheap-cheap. And just paying them to find out what the problem is could run you a couple hundred if it's out of warranty. DIY diagnostics are best if you can pull it off. -
At 2:34 PM,
TripJax said...
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Thanks all. I'll see what I can do...I have a buddy coming over tonight to check it out.
This helps me sort of sound like I know what I'm doing at least... -
At 7:22 PM,
SirFWALGMan said...
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If it is the screen your screwed. Replacing a screen in a laptop (if possible) is highly expensive. Go buy another one and that one can be a desktop.
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At 3:45 PM,
Butch Howard said...
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And you got it from Best Buy where the price's might be good, the tech service is not likely to be any help. My experience with them is that any repair that takes more than just restarting the box requires them to send it off with a 4-6 week return time. (My two datapoints: dead hard drive and dead internal wireless. One under warranty one not.)
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At 5:25 PM,
Iakaris aka I.A.K. said...
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Did you try hitting ctrl-alt-dlt? Are you SURE you plugged it in? Or that the battery was charged?
I mean really, really sure?
Ok, then I am officially out of ideas, but for what it's worth taking tech support from Waffles is a disturbing proposition.
Too bad about the Mookie. In particular too bad I got moved from your table before I could successfully steal every last one of those scrumpdelicious chips. -
At 12:18 AM,
Poker4peace said...
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By now you've probably solved your problem or have bought ya a new laptop but if not you might try rebooting into safe mode (F8 key) or try resetting your BIOS to default. You may be low on chips with your recent auto expenses but I just bought my daughter a new Gateway MX6437 notebook wide screen with an AMD Turion (1.8 GHz) 512MB, 80GB HD, wireless nic, fire wire port, dvd burner etc, for $500.00 at Bestbuy.
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At 4:46 PM,
sooted said...
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I am having a similar problem with my laptop. And it came on suddenly, too. For some reason when the charger is plugged in and I am using it, the screen goes dark even though it is running. I discovered that it was the toggle switch between laptop screen/external monitor. If I hit the toggle, the laptop screen lights up again for a few seconds (10-30), then it goes dark again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
However, I discovered that if I didn't have it plugged in and just ran on battery power, I didn't have this problem. I have no idea what could be causing this, and I haven't ripped it open yet to try and figure it out.
Please let me know what you find out about your laptop - it may be some help to me.
Oh yeah, and mine is way out of warranty. It is a hand-me-down dell, at least 4 yrs old or older. -
At 5:53 PM,
Poker4peace said...
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Sounds like it may be hanging in "suspend mode".
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