Laptop has no display although I can hear the windows login sound

Question

Ive got a problem with my Asus m51sn laptop which is 3 years old now and out of warranty.

Every night I put my laptop to sleep by putting down the lid.

The next morning I wake up and there is no display on the laptop its self or on a external monitor I had it hooked up to.

So no matter what I do I cant get any display on it at all but I can hear the noises windows makes when it boots and I can enter my password and can hear it login to windows.

Also I dont want to pay $150 for Asus to look at it.

I assume its a graphics card problem because it wont even display on a external monitor.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You have a problem with your graphics adapter as you correctly figured out.

Now, since you're dealing with a laptop, and unless you are extremely handy, your best bet is to pay up and send your computer to Asus for repair.

Of course, considering the rate at which technology advances, chances are that the paying the repair costs won't make sense, and you might consider buying a new laptop instead.

The problem with dealing with laptops is that the graphics are integrated into the motherboard, so if the graphics chipset fails, you're going to have to replace the whole motherboard 99% of the time.

Answer 2

First try unplugging your laptop from the mains and removing the battery. Wait for a few seconds, plug back in and try booting. This will take care of any BIOS problem. This is actually very unlikely to work (a blank display is not a common symptom of a BIOS issue), but it's the easiest thing to try.

Next easiest is looking for a loose display connector. That means you need to open your laptop, locate the connector, try reseating it. Google searches turn up a lot of illustrated guides, I haven't tried to locate one for your specific model.

If it's not the connector (and it might well not be, considering that an external display doesn't work either), you probably have a fried graphics adapter. This is likely not to be repairable without changing the motherboard. Asus might sell you one, but for a dissuasive price. You can try buying an identical laptop that's broken in a different way and combine the parts, but without knowing precisely where the fault is it's still financially risky.