Black Screen 100%

[Katari]

I've been cruising around looking for an answer to my problem, but no one who posted has the same problem I do, therefore I'm not sure if the process is the same.

About 10 months ago, my laptop screen just up and went black. I could faintly see what i had been doing, and moved the mouse (with MUCH patience) to shut down my laptop. Back then, i kept trying to turn it on seeing how long it would last. I would start the PC it would start up with a pinkish red tint (very light, hardly noticable) and I would hear a high pitched noise coming from my laptop. I would then get into my desktop and everything would be fine. Randomly I would hear the noise again, and my screen would go dark. I have a docking station for the laptop, and just connected it to my PC parts and everything worked fine, no issues at all.

I stopped using it, as i was tired of not knowing when it would go out. The laptop is as follows:
Dell latitude D610
Using the windows XP OS.

Last week, I started it up because I wanted to use my photoshop again for work. The screen lasted a good 3 hours before shutting off again. Once again, it only goes dark, I can see if i look hard enough, and the computer responds to all my actions, it just goes dark.

I googled a few things, and saw that I can replace the blub in the screen manually, but when i took it to a few shops, they all told me the screen itself was bad, and that I would need to replace the whole thing for about 200$. I'm wondering which is right, my dad tried fixing my laptop once and broke my wireless chip, and one company i took it to said that the laptop was over heating and trying to connect which is why the screen is going black.

Just wondering, any help would be appreciated, i need to fix it asap.

[rubberman]

Have you tried just plugging in the AC adapter to see if it is a battery or battery control problem? Since it works when plugged into the docking bay, that seems a reasonable test to me. BTW, other than the laptop, what else is connected to the docking bay?

[Katari]

Well, Since I can't leave the laptop open when it's docked, I plug in a monitor, mouse, and keyboard into the spots on the station (not the laptop itself though that works fine also). I plug the battery into the docking station, instead of the laptop (as the hole is covered once i place it in) and basically use the station as a prop for the laptop.

I have used the laptop itself also, without the docking station, just plugging in the stuff to the laptop, battery, keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc and again, nothing happens, it runs normal.

The laptop screen goes black whether or not it's plugged into the battery, i also don't have a cooling pad, so it does get hot, but not burn your skin hot.

[jingda]

Try taking your laptop to a computer repair shop and see what the expert have to say.

[Katari]

If you could please re-read the whole post, you will find that i did that about 4 times =)

[flagstar]

So you were saying that either plugged in or not, it would still goes dark after several hours right?

First assumption for that would be probably the brightness for your laptop. This usually do if you run on battery. If you have set brightness to lowest by accident, set it to high again and see what happen

Second would be the screen itself has gone bad, as you have take your laptop to a repair shop for replacement. They are right actually. Your screen need to be replace even when you used it fine for a couple of hours. Dark screen probably better but don't wait till it fully black screen.

Well third would be probably your Windows configuration. You could put this as second but I prefer this as third assumption.

This is a DIY test so it would take some time to test this. First of all, download Puppy Linux's .iso from the link. Once done, open the .iso files. It'll automatically told you to insert a cd to your cd/dvd burner and burn it. Then insert the cd back and reboot your computer. After reboot, set your BIOS to run from CD first and Puppy Linux would do the rest to initialize.

After it finally boot with success, leave it for several hours. If it indeed goes dark even when you move the cursor, then it's confirm you have a bad screen and need a replacement.