[valve bouncer]

Was just typing along, suddenly the screen went haywire, like really, really bad interference on your TV, bit of a weird noise, then the screen came back but the clours were off and nothing would work. Turned it off and then.....nothing, no lights, no sound. Not. A. Cracker. Tried all combinations of battery on, off, AC power only, together everything I can think of, left for an hour, tried again, nothing. She's toast.
The odd thing was how the screen went haywire before the meltdown.
Kind of looked like this before I turned it off but with a more pinkish/reddish tinge

Any hints what the problem is, or if my explanation is too vague, what's likely not to be? I'll take it into the shop tomorrow so I just want ot have at least some idea what's wrong. Thanks you blokes.

 

[binary visions]

Can you plug it into an external monitor or a TV or something to see if the video card is generating a signal?

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Try the Weaver stance.

 

[valve bouncer]

Can you plug it into an external monitor or a TV or something to see if the video card is generating a signal?

The laptop is completely dead BV, no lights, no sounds, nothing, black and cold, like my heart.

 

[valve bouncer]

Try the Weaver stance.

Not helping pops.

 

[binary visions]

The laptop is completely dead BV, no lights, no sounds, nothing, black and cold, like my heart.

Ah, I thought you meant the monitor was dead.

Could be a lot of things. With the whole laptop dead, there's a million pieces inside that could have caused it - blown capacitor, short circuit, overheating. With the screen going haywire immediately before, it might be the on-board video that had the issue and it took the system with it. No telling without pulling the thing apart.

Can't help you much. With the laptop OR the heart.

 

[valve bouncer]

Ah, I thought you meant the monitor was dead.

Could be a lot of things. With the whole laptop dead, there's a million pieces inside that could have caused it - blown capacitor, short circuit, overheating. With the screen going haywire immediately before, it might be the on-board video that had the issue and it took the system with it. No telling without pulling the thing apart.

Can't help you much. With the laptop OR the heart.

OK mate, sounds sensible. I'll take it down and see what they say at the shop but I reckon it might be new laptop time. The one I have now was an el-cheapo that's 2 and a half years old, I think I've had a good run.
Your help is, as usual, much appreciated.

 

[binary visions]

Post up if you need help with selection of a new laptop. I'd be more than happy to ignore you and/or tell you to fvck yourself.

 

[Ciaran]

Too much weird japanese pr0n.

 

[valve bouncer]

Too much weird japanese pr0n.

No need to say weird mate, like saying "dumb" N8 post.

Well took the useless hunk of plastic down to the shop today and was going to cost $60 just to even think about looking at it. Then they've got to actually fix the bloody thing so god knows how much that was gonna cost so....ordered a Dell on-line tonight. The huge discounts they give teachers made it pretty much unbeatable value. Here it is anyway, forgive any mistakes as I've translated from Japanese and don't really know what I'm doing;

Dell Vostro 1000 15.4 inch screen
XP Home
1GB RAM (2x 512mb DDR SD-RAM)
80 GB SATA Hard Drive
CPU:-- AMD Athlon(TM) 64X2 Dual Core Processor TK-57 (1.9GHz, 512KB L2 Cache)
Graphic Controller (video card???):-- ATI Radeon(R) Xpress 1150
Internal Wireless Card- 802-11 a/b/g
TFT WXGA 1280x800 display
6 cell battery
DVD-ROM optical drive
3 years insurance

Came to 71,000 yen shipped which is just under US$ 700, fairly reasonable I thought. I don't need anything fancy, so big hard drives, DVD burners or massive amounts of RAM were unnecessary. Was happy enough to keep using XP.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Next time you buy, I strongly recommend buying the Pro rather than the Home version of the operating system. I will come with a lot less crapware icons sitting on your desktop to try to sell you things that you neither want nor need.

Also, when buying from Dell, use their small business rather than their home distribution channel. You have to wade through less crap to get what you want.