It randomly turned to a black screen. Now anytime I boot it, it displays a white flash with random geometric patterns that slowly fades to black. Nothing starts to boot, no POST beep, nada. The only keystrokes it responds to is the CTRL ALT DEL combo, which immediately reboots the computer only to do the same thing. Leaving it on for extended periods doesn't activate startup repair. Taking out the battery or unplugging the power source doesn't change anything. I feel like a piece of hardware is fried but I don't know. Dell is an abortion of a company and didn't include an installation disk for the OS, so I might have to resort to pirating if I need it....

Ideas? Anyone? I'm especially pissed because I may have lost 10 minutes of some brand new music.... :(

my advice is the same as with anyone, suck on some wieners! cool!

sounds like your display inverter crapped out, can you plug in an external monitor?

sucking on wieners has done only good things for my life

hmmm... indeed I can. I will try this.

Send me that song or your computer is a pussy. Id go with trying to plug in a new monitor. I've had experience with the ribbon cable that connects the lcd to the laptop going bad.

I legitimately had just put the folder into a zip file and was waiting for megaupload to copy it to their slow ass servers when this happened.

Don't worry about your music. The hard drive's probably fine. No POST = hardware issues though. Sounds like the video card is fried. Or maybe motherboard or memory. It being a laptop, only thing you can do is swap memory out or try only 1 SODIMM (if there are 2 installed that is) before you either chuck it or send it back to Dell for repair. Out of Warranty repair is usually a few hundred bucks for business line shit. You may have just found a new replacement for the yellow pages elevating that 1 leg of your couch in the corner where the floor dips down a little bit.

external video output results in no signal... shits fucked.

This sounds nothing like the inverter. Msd haas the right idea.

Indeed, save the drive.

i happen to have two extra videocards for sale. i will sell them for $20 each. one is a ati radeon 2600 and the other is this ASUS custom one from new egg or something.

Sweet. Sever, buy 'em and duct tape them to the bottom of the laptop.

This definitely sounds like a problem with the video card. It is pretty easy and cheap to get an enclosure/adapter for your hard drive to make it be a USB external HD and you will have full access to your data on any machine.

lolzzzzzz

That sucks. 10 minutes of music, for me that's like 6 months worth of work!

you make music now? since when?

I may take up your offer on the 2600. I have a PC that I've been intending to upgrade for a few years...

Actually... what are the specs on the ASUS?

SUCH A STRANGE GAME
THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS
NOT TO PLAY

bump do want