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From: Tom M on 4 Jan 2010 14:54
Hello all,

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 whose screen is shot. I can shine a
flashlight on it and see the GUI so I know it's the screen and not
something else. Anyway, I don't really care to replace the screen at
this point; I'd rather hook it up to my TV as a monitor.

When I hook the laptop up to my TV via the VGA cord, I am able to
switch to the external monitor using Fn+F5 (I think, I'm not looking
at it right now). However, during boot, the external monitor ONLY
comes on when it gets to the Windows logon screen. It will not show
the POST or BIOS on the external monitor.

I can hit F2 during boot to enter BIOS and then navigate the BIOS by
shining a flashlight on the laptop screen, but I don't see anything
that lets me kind of "switch" the primary display from the laptop
screen to the external monitor.

Is there anyway to switch the entire display -- including POST -- to
the external monitor?

Thanks
Tom
From: BillW50 on 4 Jan 2010 15:14
In
news:7e10bbca-a18e-48ff-895e-06488b58810d(a)d20g2000yqh.googlegroups.com,
Tom M typed on Mon, 4 Jan 2010 11:54:25 -0800 (PST):
> Hello all,
>
> I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 whose screen is shot. I can shine a
> flashlight on it and see the GUI so I know it's the screen and not
> something else. Anyway, I don't really care to replace the screen at
> this point; I'd rather hook it up to my TV as a monitor.
>
> When I hook the laptop up to my TV via the VGA cord, I am able to
> switch to the external monitor using Fn+F5 (I think, I'm not looking
> at it right now). However, during boot, the external monitor ONLY
> comes on when it gets to the Windows logon screen. It will not show
> the POST or BIOS on the external monitor.
>
> I can hit F2 during boot to enter BIOS and then navigate the BIOS by
> shining a flashlight on the laptop screen, but I don't see anything
> that lets me kind of "switch" the primary display from the laptop
> screen to the external monitor.
>
> Is there anyway to switch the entire display -- including POST -- to
> the external monitor?
>
> Thanks
> Tom

Hi Tom! I was just working on my niece's Dell D610. And there wasn't any
option in the BIOS to toggle the display off of the internal display
either. Only once Windows loads can you change the display.

I now have 4 Gateway laptops. And all of them you can change it in the
BIOS. And the choices are internal, external, or both. You would think
all BIOS would be this way.

Btw, your internal display isn't working correctly because the
florescent lamp isn't lit. It could be a stuck lid switch. Or more
commonly it could be the inverter or the lamp in the top lid. Unless
that is one of the ones with LEDs to illuminate the display.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3


From: Tom M on 4 Jan 2010 16:02
On Jan 4, 3:14 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...(a)aol.kom> wrote:
>
> Hi Tom! I was just working on my niece's Dell D610. And there wasn't any
> option in the BIOS to toggle the display off of the internal display
> either. Only once Windows loads can you change the display.
>
> I now have 4 Gateway laptops. And all of them you can change it in the
> BIOS. And the choices are internal, external, or both. You would think
> all BIOS would be this way.
>
> Btw, your internal display isn't working correctly because the
> florescent lamp isn't lit. It could be a stuck lid switch. Or more
> commonly it could be the inverter or the lamp in the top lid. Unless
> that is one of the ones with LEDs to illuminate the display.
>
> --
> Bill
> Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3

Thanks, Bill. I was afraid of that. I am thinking about maxing out
the memory (which is 1 GB) and putting Windows 7 on it (it has a P4
2.6ghz processor, which is adequate), but I don't know how far I can
get without being able to see the BIOS very well.

As I understand, inverters are pretty cheap. Do you know is there a
way to tell it's definitely the problem, or something else?

Thanks
Tom
From: BillW50 on 4 Jan 2010 16:33
In
news:03ad6d3c-7790-41ee-ba2f-67cb0ea887c9(a)v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com,
Tom M typed on Mon, 4 Jan 2010 13:02:18 -0800 (PST):
> On Jan 4, 3:14 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...(a)aol.kom> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Tom! I was just working on my niece's Dell D610. And there wasn't
>> any option in the BIOS to toggle the display off of the internal
>> display either. Only once Windows loads can you change the display.
>>
>> I now have 4 Gateway laptops. And all of them you can change it in
>> the BIOS. And the choices are internal, external, or both. You would
>> think all BIOS would be this way.
>>
>> Btw, your internal display isn't working correctly because the
>> florescent lamp isn't lit. It could be a stuck lid switch. Or more
>> commonly it could be the inverter or the lamp in the top lid. Unless
>> that is one of the ones with LEDs to illuminate the display.
>
> Thanks, Bill. I was afraid of that. I am thinking about maxing out
> the memory (which is 1 GB) and putting Windows 7 on it (it has a P4
> 2.6ghz processor, which is adequate), but I don't know how far I can
> get without being able to see the BIOS very well.
>
> As I understand, inverters are pretty cheap. Do you know is there a
> way to tell it's definitely the problem, or something else?
>
> Thanks
> Tom

Hi Tom! I believe you should be okay without seeing the BIOS. I would be
a little concern about the 1GB max for Windows 7 though. As I only tried
it on 2GB systems and I thought it was too slow and swapping to the
drive a lot. Tomorrow I am going to try it again on another 2GB machine.
Just a bit beefier this time and a better video card. And I can grab 2GB
more RAM from other machines here if it needs it.

As to your lamp problem. There is no easy way to tell. And some lamps
are really difficult to replace without changing the whole LCD display.
So the easy way is to find a LCD panel with inverter on eBay or
something. Sometimes you can get them really reasonable, like for 50
bucks. Some people like replacing the whole top lid instead. Although it
doesn't make much of a difference to me. Although I have been in and out
of them a lot.

And remember even if you do exchange out the whole top lid, it still
might not fix the problem. Although the odds are about 9 out of 10 that
it will. As it still could be the lid switch or motherboard still. Well
the display cable if that wasn't changed when the LCD panel was
replaced.

Another thought is buying a whole used laptop like yours on eBay with
some other problem. As long as the display works, that would be good
enough. Plus you have lots of spare other parts too for about the same
cost for a display and inverter.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3


From: Tom M on 4 Jan 2010 16:55
On Jan 4, 4:33 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...(a)aol.kom> wrote:
>
> Hi Tom! I believe you should be okay without seeing the BIOS. I would be
> a little concern about the 1GB max for Windows 7 though. As I only tried
> it on 2GB systems and I thought it was too slow and swapping to the
> drive a lot. Tomorrow I am going to try it again on another 2GB machine.
> Just a bit beefier this time and a better video card. And I can grab 2GB
> more RAM from other machines here if it needs it.
>
> As to your lamp problem. There is no easy way to tell. And some lamps
> are really difficult to replace without changing the whole LCD display.
> So the easy way is to find a LCD panel with inverter on eBay or
> something. Sometimes you can get them really reasonable, like for 50
> bucks. Some people like replacing the whole top lid instead. Although it
> doesn't make much of a difference to me. Although I have been in and out
> of them a lot.
>
> And remember even if you do exchange out the whole top lid, it still
> might not fix the problem. Although the odds are about 9 out of 10 that
> it will. As it still could be the lid switch or motherboard still. Well
> the display cable if that wasn't changed when the LCD panel was
> replaced.
>
> Another thought is buying a whole used laptop like yours on eBay with
> some other problem. As long as the display works, that would be good
> enough. Plus you have lots of spare other parts too for about the same
> cost for a display and inverter.
>
> --
> Bill
> Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3

Thanks, Bill. I think I will give installing Windows 7 a shot,
despite not seeing the BIOS. I actually installed it on another
Toshiba laptop with (gulp) 512mb RAM and 2ghz processor. I just
turned off all the fancy GUI bells and whistles. This machine doesn't
run a lot of apps and I think it's actually running faster than XP did
on it.

I did replace a screen (just the screen, not the lid) on my Inspiron
E1505, which was a snap. But I knew for sure that old screen was
blown; couldn't see anything even with a light held to it. Wish I
could know for sure on this one, if it's just replacing the inverter
or the whole screen. I can't find a decent screen for less than $100;
looks like inverters run $15-20.

Thanks again
Tom
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