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Ok, earlier while I was playing a game on my laptop, the screen kept going black intermittently. Later while I was browsing the 'net, the screen went black and stayed that way.
Then I did a hard boot. The dos screen came up, then the "starting windows" message came up. Then it went black, and stayed that way.

I then hooked the laptop up to a monitor. It was black still, so I hard booted again. And again I got the dos screen, then the "starting windows" message, and then it went black. THEN I got the little musical notes that indicate that windows has come up.

What causes this?

I had been thinking about getting a new laptop anyway due to a couple of other problems, so I guess I'll go ahead with that plan. But what can I do to get all my stuff (documents, pictures) off of this laptop when I can't get a picture?

This is EXACTLY what happened to me when my last laptop died. According to the repair guy, it had to do with my not having an adequate cooling system. (Hrumph. I always used a cooling pad; wasn't that enough? Apparently I am not cool enough.)

I can actually believe that, because I have had problems with keeping it cool. I do use a cooling pad, too.

Did they say what part broke? Were they able to fix it? If you didn't get it fixed, were they able to retrieve your stuff?

Can you sort of see the image on the screen while shining a light on it at the right angle? If yes, it's the backlight that's the problem. One older laptop of mine liked to go black on hot summer days, so that can be temperature related.

(If it's just the backlight don't worry about your data. You could always take the harddisk out — or have someone do it for you, of course — and connect it to another computer to copy all that is needed.)

But if it were the backlight, would the dos screen appear fine, and the problem is consistent when hooked up to another monitor?

I do think the data is ok. I might bring this to a local repair shop and even if I don't get it fixed, I am hoping they can get my data out for me.

But is it really the same with the external monitor? If it happened during Windows startup, it might just have switched back to the internal monitor by default. Maybe the monitor switching Fn-key combination gets it back?

It could be the graphics chip glitching of course, or the RAM the graphics chip uses.

Gravious wrote:Maybe the monitor switching Fn-key combination gets it back?

This. What is this and how do I do it? Because if it CAN work with a monitor, then I can at least backup all my stuff and that's one less thing to worry about. Thanks.

Well, the special keys are different on each brand, but usually it's the 'Fn' key, which is often marked in blue, pressed together with one of the F-keys which have accompanying blue symbols on them. The monitor switch symbols is often a sort of rectangly thing next to a different rectangly thing on a socket or something.

Maybe like this or this.

OMG it worked!! I can access my computer from the other monitor. (It was[FN] + F4, btw.) Thank you so much! I am thrilled. Now at least no matter if I can get this fixed or have to junk it, at least I can backup all my crap now and not have to worry about it.


Thanks again!!!!!

Excellent. My pleasure.