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When I try to start up my Dell Vostro 1088 it just shows a blank screen. The hard drive and the CD drive works. I can hear some sound. But I cannot even see the Dell startup splash screen. How can I fix this?

Edit

I don't know what happened but when I started it today it worked.

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  • Sounds like something is loosely connected - temperature changes will encourage em to wriggle back & forth over time. Oct 19, 2010 at 15:09

3 Answers 3

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Do you have an external monitor you can plug into? that would point to a display/video issue

Does it beep? If so, what's the beep pattern?

Are any lights coming on?

Was it doing anything unusual before this started?

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  • Yes, I tried plugging into an external monitor. No beeps. Just the Power and Bluetooth lights are on. Hard disk light lights up for a few seconds after boot but then goes off. It wasn't doing anything unusual before this. I had installed Ubuntu 10.10 on it a week ago and it worked fine.
    – User
    Oct 16, 2010 at 20:50
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    It sounds like parts are gettin power, but the BIOS is never firing. My guess would be that either the motherboard has come loose or is failing. Pop open the case and reseat the connections? Oct 19, 2010 at 15:08
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Hello I had this problem already multiple times with my 2x Vostro1000.

Just open the panel which contains the powerbutton (and some light indicators).

Under that you will find the backlight inverter to your display. press the 2cm long connector back into its connector-slot (around the location just above the 'printscreen button'.

It seems that the design of the connector coming from the backlight inverter is poorely made. I always push the connector back down and it's OK. It's like a 2 min job.

I learned this from another guy who had the same issue with Vostro1000.

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I had similar issue: it would go to black (or dark screen w/ vertical lines) after being on for a while or dark screen at boot up. Sometimes it came on, sometimes it didn't. Before the issue started it seemed to be running a little hot and as the problem became habitual, allowing it to cool down seemed to help, but after a while even that wouldn't bring it back. I gave up on it for about 6 months and decided to give it one last shot before sending it off to recycle (I cleared hard drive of saved files when this all started). I checked out numerous posts and videos (almost all way too technical for my level of competency) but one thing I saw suggested was to unplug power supply, remove battery, hold the power button down for 20 seconds (to completely discharge the thing). Then plug in power supply (don't reinstall battery) & power up. I have no idea why, but it worked for my situation. I don't think it will last long as the unit's still running hotter than it should but it's almost 10 years old and not worth investing to replace any components.

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