Verify if my laptop is affected? DV4 screen went black. Help?

[lalalost]

Hi,

I have a dv4 (entertainment model?) notebook and last night 3/15 upon "restart" the screen stays blank. All of the lights work properly and the screen seems to turn "on" but is black.

I tried the suggested troubleshooting - remove battery, hold power button, plug in, restart. But that did nothing.

Can someone verify if I have what seems to be a huge problem with the HP notebooks? My Google search this morning also reveals a class action with a deadline of two days ago??

I have had the computer for 15 months and it had a one year warranty. I could really use some advice on what my next step should be.

Thank you!

[erico]

HI,

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lalalost wrote:

Hi,

I have a dv4 (entertainment model?) notebook and last night 3/15 upon "restart" the screen stays blank. All of the lights work properly and the screen seems to turn "on" but is black.

I tried the suggested troubleshooting - remove battery, hold power button, plug in, restart. But that did nothing.

Can someone verify if I have what seems to be a huge problem with the HP notebooks? My Google search this morning also reveals a class action with a deadline of two days ago??

I have had the computer for 15 months and it had a one year warranty. I could really use some advice on what my next step should be.

Thank you!

---

The first thing you need to do is try a hard reset:

Remove the battery and unplug the DC power adapter.
press and hold the power button for more than fifteen seconds.
plug in the DC power adapter (leave the battery out for now)
press the power button

Now try the flashlight test. In a darkened room use a flashlight and shine it on the LCD dsplay. Do you dimly see a Windows desktop? If yes , then try the following.

connecting a external display to see if you can see anything while booting up. If you can then your backlight inverter needs to be replaced. That is not a super expensive repair. DIY is @$25.-30.00. In a shop perhaps $50-$75.00.

If no then either your LCD display has failed or you have a failed video chip.

Do not consider the following if you have not exhausted the preceding troubleshooting efforts.

{Content Edited: Legal discussion is not permitted on the forums} This issue was industry wide and did not only affect HP laptops. The issue was the NVIDIA chipset.

Best regards,
erico

[lalalost]

I did both of your suggested troubleshooting options before posting and both failed.

I can't believe this. I am so upset.

[erico]

Did you check at the NVIDIA GPU litigation website to see if yours was one of the affected models?

If yes and it was thennow you know basically what you can do.

This was an NVIDIA  blunder. It is pretty much like the recent Intel blunder with the sandy bridge chipset problem. It was not the fault of the manufacturers as they were misled.

Best of luck on whichever direction you choose to go with this,

erico

[Young032]

Hopefully HP is not currently using NVIDA chipset. Knowing they are still bad why are they still putting them in laptops, does not makes sense to me.

Mike

[erico]

Hi,

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Young032 wrote:

Hopefully HP is not currently using NVIDA chipset. Knowing they are still bad why are they still putting them in laptops, does not makes sense to me.

Mike

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It was a particular chipset, not the ones currently in use.  The remaining chipsets have no real issues. NVIDIA does make some great products. They are a subdivision of AMD.

Best regards,
erico