Computer Repair n Tips

That's a good idea. I'll see if my desktop monitor can plug into the laptop, I doubt it though as the laptop is old.

Yeah, it was weird...I just tried again and there's not even any color, just black.

What Flicker said.


My guess, If it's older, you may have a VGA monitor output port. If slightly newer, could be HDMI. For either one, you can probably find adapters and/or cables to connect from whatever port it is to your external monitor at Best Buy. Screens go bad eventually. Worse case and the laptop is dead and irreparable, you can backup your current drive to another but will probably need the help of a local techie friend.


If you ran an update on your graphics driver, that might be it but given the age probably not. See what you can pull up with the external monitor and go from there.

Thanks...

It's VGA I just looked, it's a 14 year old laptop! Ancient And I tried but can't hook it up to my monitor. Thing is I need it fixed like now! It might be the monitor, but if it is it won't be worth fixing. I guess the same goes for the motherboard. Damn I guess I'll need to find another one.

Definitely try hooking it up to an external monitor. Hubby busted his laptop screen and couldn't see anything but needed to get data off of it before giving up on it. We hooked up an external monitor--but to get it to default to that monitor first, you have to reboot/turn on the laptop and immediately close the lid. The startup will then proceed with the external monitor you plugged in.

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Check what input options your monitor has. I'm sure Best Buy has a VGA-to- X type cable on the shelf. You can check their website for local stock.

Or even a VGA adapter dongle type thing to connect to whatever cable is currently going into your monitor.

Thanks, I didn't know about rebooting and closing the lid immediately.

I checked and geez the monitor is way dusty back there. It has VGA port.

Assuming a VGA to VGA:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insigni...?skuId=5885036




Or similar. They probably have options if that's not in-store. Good-Will probably has a handful of those cables as they are older tech and get tossed, especially from offices upgrading systems. It would for sure be cheaper but a gamble if they have em.

Best of luck

Thanks that looks like the right cable, only I need my monitor for myself I might test it out for fun, but I'll have to get my wife another laptop. I was thinking of looking at Goodwill for used laptops but I don't know what kind of selection or prices they have.

We had to Google it. The laptop kept (naturally) booting to its own screen, but it was now broken. There was no way to see to get into the BIOS to change the settings, or all the way into Windows to add a second monitor there either.

So, a little Google sleuthing gave us the answer. And it worked! If it doesn't work the first time, you probably didn't close the lid soon enough. (We did THAT too!)

I've gotten decent secondhand laptops on eBay (from good sellers with good ratings). Also, I've gotten refurbished tech from Amazon as well as Woot.com ... As long as you're scrutinizing ratings and reviews, you should be all right.

You might try (if you have not already) hunting down an exact replacement. If you can find one and the OS is dated it would mean just switching out the hd.

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I thought about buying the same model laptop but it's 14 years old, I'll be looking for something a bit newer! But not new, I can't afford that.

You can also just hit the windows key + P. That's cycle through the different modes: duplicate, extended, external monitor, internal monitor.

And I have a fairly newish laptop that I am not using: I'll let you know the model/specs when I get home. The case is a little janky (I'll take some pics of it so you see what I mean), but if you want it I'd be happy to ship it your way if you cover the shipping.

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I was thinking more on the tech side and about saving and sustaining data.
I would definitely recommend updating and the comparative price of laptops today certainly give you more computing power than they did 14 years ago.

Wow, that is really nice of you I really appreciate it! But I did already buy my wife a laptop, earlier today. Should be here by next week. Fingers crossed it works good!

Oh I see, yeah I already pulled the SSD and ran it on my computer just to get some files off that wasn't already backed up. Think I'll nuke the SSD clean and then put a new OS on it when her computer arrives.

Ahh, nice! So you don't need to see a screen to do this? It actually moves from one mode to the other? Good to know!

This made me laugh. (Yeah I know I could say lol)

Sarcasm is alive and well in you.

Well, umm, I was actually serious. I pictured these keystrokes moving from one menu box to another the way a Tab key might... but you'd need to see that on a screen in order to pick the right one if you had to hit OK or Submit or something. That was issue hubby had: screen broken, so he couldn't change monitor settings in BIOS or in Windows settings.

So, he rebooted the laptop and immediately closed the lid before it could get past the BIOS reboot. That forced it to look for another monitor besides the one built into the laptop.

SO, I wasn't sure if McClane meant that his workaround would just zip from one mode to another on its own--and you'd just have to keep hitting that key combination until your external monitor was the active one. Was just trying to confirm with him that this is what it would do. Our way was pretty fast: reboot, slam lid, ta-daaa!

@Austruck: I forgot to mention you gotta hit enter to choose the mode, but yeah, you don’t need to see the screen to use that feature. You can just hit Windows+p and hit enter and it’ll switch to duplicate as the first option. But if it doesn’t you’d just do it again until you get the right mode.

And I tell you what it is far easier and more convenient than the nightmare that MacOS is because it works out of the box on Windows. I think MacOS finally added a keyboard shortcut to switch displays out of the box, but try getting a busted iMac connected to an external monitor once was an involved nightmare.

No worries. Happy to help. I hope the new one works out for you.