Laptop Black screen but power - Sony Vaio Laptop Model # SVE17137CXB

greedostick

Obsessed Neo-Fan
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Having issues with a Sony Vaio Laptop Model # SVE17137CXB:

Told a friend at work I would take a look at this for him, thinking it was something stupid, but I may have a real hardware issue. Need some people to bang heads with.

Specs:

Intel Core i7-3632QM
Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
8GB DDR3-1600 RAM
1TB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
AMD Radeon HD 7650M

The laptop will power on, but the screen is completely black. It never does anything. Here is what I have tried...

1. Holding power for 60 seconds to drain capacitors, after removing battery and power cord.
2. Opened up and pulled CMOS battery, and reset BIOS.
3. Tried booting up holding the "assistance" button.
4. Tried connecting to an external monitor, and holding FN, and pressing F7 twice, then Enter, to boot on a television via HDMI.
4. Tried reseating RAM, and Hard Drive.
5. Adjusting screen brightness.

I'm completely lost at this point. I'm not sure if the GPU is dead, or if it is stuck in some weird monitor mode that won't display on the laptop or television. Maybe I'm pressing the wrong button combination to get it to display on a tv, or set back to laptop display.

I was reading about something called FLEA power, and maybe that is causing my monitor issues, but would that cause it not to display on a television as well?

Also, this thing powers on, the laptop keys have light, the hard rive spins, when I put a CD in I can hear it working, all the fans are working as well. Just always the black screen, no BIOS screen, nothing ever.
 
Last edited:

werejag

Galford's Poppy Trainer
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take a flashlight and try to see if simply the light source of the screen is bad

if it cant display on a extrenal source it might indeed be a dead gpu
 
Last edited:

BlackaneseNiNjA

The Fatal Fury Disciple
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If the gpu isn't shot, sometimes the small ribbon cable connecting to the back of the lcd display can become loose or faulty. Try the cable to see if disconnecting and reconnecting the display cable produces any results.
 

aha2940

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If the issue was only the light source of the LCD, Windows would load and make the startups sounds. This is more than that. Since an external monitor fails too, I'd also say the GPU is dead. If it's an nVidia chip, it may have commited suicide with its own heat. Search on the Internet to see if baking the motherboard looks like a method to bring this particular model back to life when GPU fails. It works with some models, at least for a time.

Regards.
 

BlackaneseNiNjA

The Fatal Fury Disciple
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Whats up aha2940. My mistake, I didn't see a mention of a lack of sounds, only that the screen was failing to display anything. I wasn't referring to the screen's backlight lamp. The lcd display cable is responsible for transfering data from the motherboard or video card to the screen. I agree that in this case the gpu is the likely culprit, but I've seen this cable/connection fail long before the gpu in some laptops. Never hurts to check the easy fail points first at zero cost.
 

aha2940

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Whats up aha2940. My mistake, I didn't see a mention of a lack of sounds, only that the screen was failing to display anything. I wasn't referring to the screen's backlight lamp. The lcd display cable is responsible for transfering data from the motherboard or video card to the screen. I agree that in this case the gpu is the likely culprit, but I've seen this cable/connection fail long before the gpu in some laptops. Never hurts to check the easy fail points first at zero cost.

No worries man. The lack of sounds is more my assumption, nothing else. Also, OP has not told us if any of these suggestions worked or not. Hopefully yes, but wouldn't be surprised if not.
 

greedostick

Obsessed Neo-Fan
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Yeah.. Nothings working. So we decided to ebay it and put it toward a desktop. Thanks for all the input.
 

aha2940

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,
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Yeah.. Nothings working. So we decided to ebay it and put it toward a desktop. Thanks for all the input.

Had the same issue with an old dell laptop some years ago. I found cheaper to buy a newer motherboard to it thatn getting a new one. Still working with the replacement board.
 
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