HP pavilion problem with seeing things on my screen / monitor

joymommy · 01-05-2009, 01:29 PM

Hi there,

Hi have a HP Pavilion that has been working well. It occasionally has flickered a bit on the monitor but I'm not sure that that's what the cause of the current problem was.

Today I downloaded a PDF file from a site that I frequently download from. (a homeschool curriculum site) and after it downloaded I went to click the X on the download box and immediately the monitor went to extremely dim where I can hardly see anything except for a shadow of something on the screen. I can tell that the computer is still running as I was barely able to close a window but the screen looks mostly black. I turned off the computer and restarted it and initially the screen looked completely normal until I clicked the first thing after it started up and then it went black again. Now I can't even get it to open all the way.

I tried plugging in an external monitor and initially it looks like it will work and then all of a sudden that monitor will just turn off like it's not receiving any information. I turned it off again and restarted the computer and hit esc to get to the menu before Windows started and I can do that and I'm running the diagnostic using the other monitor right now. Any ideas on what is going on? It doesn't seem like it's a monitor problem since the other monitor won't keep working with it and since the monitor works initially. Thanks for any help!

Melanie

**TriggerFinger** · 01-05-2009, 09:59 PM

So you mean you have screen in both laptop and monitor when you run diagnostics? Can you go into BIOS settings at least?

beut · 01-05-2009, 11:09 PM

You can use Fn+F4 to toggle between external monitor and LCD. If the external monitor works fine, you can concentrate on the LCD.
Normally a bad inverter is the source of dim or flicker LCD, you can try another inverter and it's very easy to replace.

If both displays have problem, your GPU probably is the culprit, a common problem of HP, especially with the Nvidia chipset.

01-05-2009, 01:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
joymommy Registered User Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1 OS: xp	HP pavilion problem with seeing things on my screen / monitor Hi there, Hi have a HP Pavilion that has been working well. It occasionally has flickered a bit on the monitor but I'm not sure that that's what the cause of the current problem was. Today I downloaded a PDF file from a site that I frequently download from. (a homeschool curriculum site) and after it downloaded I went to click the X on the download box and immediately the monitor went to extremely dim where I can hardly see anything except for a shadow of something on the screen. I can tell that the computer is still running as I was barely able to close a window but the screen looks mostly black. I turned off the computer and restarted it and initially the screen looked completely normal until I clicked the first thing after it started up and then it went black again. Now I can't even get it to open all the way. I tried plugging in an external monitor and initially it looks like it will work and then all of a sudden that monitor will just turn off like it's not receiving any information. I turned it off again and restarted the computer and hit esc to get to the menu before Windows started and I can do that and I'm running the diagnostic using the other monitor right now. Any ideas on what is going on? It doesn't seem like it's a monitor problem since the other monitor won't keep working with it and since the monitor works initially. Thanks for any help! Melanie

01-05-2009, 09:59 PM	#2 (permalink)
TriggerFinger Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: USA Posts: 11,144 OS: Windows 7 Beta, Vista SP1, XP SP3, PCLinuxOS2007	Re: HP pavilion problem with seeing things on my screen / monitor So you mean you have screen in both laptop and monitor when you run diagnostics? Can you go into BIOS settings at least? __________________ DBAN - Memtest86+ - BartPE - Linux LiveCD - ImgBurn - HDD Diags - Everest HOW TO BURN AN ISO FILE

01-05-2009, 11:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
beut Registered User Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 47 OS: xp	Re: HP pavilion problem with seeing things on my screen / monitor You can use Fn+F4 to toggle between external monitor and LCD. If the external monitor works fine, you can concentrate on the LCD. Normally a bad inverter is the source of dim or flicker LCD, you can try another inverter and it's very easy to replace. If both displays have problem, your GPU probably is the culprit, a common problem of HP, especially with the Nvidia chipset.