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Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

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JonE
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Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166050

Postby JonE » September 13th, 2018, 11:26 am

Display on ASUS k50c laptop (X5DC) of late-2009 vintage is misbehaving.

I can see (and navigate) BIOS screens but allowing any boot of Win7 from HDD to continue displays a screen full of multi-coloured, thin horizontal lines on black background.

Tried booting from old LXLE and Lubuntu live DVDs and GParted Live (all of which have previously worked fine on this machine). Memtest option is fine (character-based screen display) but disk check, distro integrity-check and any other option provides crazy display of multi-coloured chequer-board style. I'm guessing that these all involve graphics rather than being solely character-based. Even opting for booting LXLE in safe graphics mode (xforcevesa) displays flickering chequer-board. Once I see the chequer-board resorting to power button is then the only way to shut down. Worth noting that the LXLE menu and the GParted menu each has a non-character background which displays OK.

Tried an external VGA monitor but it behaves exactly as internal display.

I now have the base removed and cooling fan can be seen to run as expected plus symptoms are the same regardless of whether the machine is started at ambient or has been running a little while.

So... screen itself isn't dead and non-Windows tests indicate it's not drivers or, with less certainty, connectors (perhaps some ribbon tracks aren't connecting properly and that also has effect on external monitor). I guess I could create a bootable generic-DOS CD but don't know what more that could tell me. Am I looking at a broken GPU or are there any other avenues to investigate?

Cheers!

GeoffF100
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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166133

Postby GeoffF100 » September 13th, 2018, 5:49 pm

You are not being very clear here. What happens when you boot Lubuntu? Do you get a desktop? If not, you could try FreeDOS, or Ubuntu Server.

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166144

Postby ReformedCharacter » September 13th, 2018, 7:29 pm

It does sound as if you have hardware failure unfortunately. Your testing seems to rule out any other explanation.

RC

JonE
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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166187

Postby JonE » September 13th, 2018, 9:51 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:You are not being very clear here. What happens when you boot Lubuntu? Do you get a desktop? If not, you could try FreeDOS, or Ubuntu Server.


Trying to actually boot Lubuntu (or LXLE or GParted, etc.) from the initial menu comes under the category of "any other option provides crazy display of multi-coloured chequer-board style". Apologies for not having made that clearer.

Character-based utilities work (judging by BIOS and MemTest screens) but anything graphical fails - except, interestingly, for images behind the initial menus which somehow manage to display without needing 'proper' graphical support.

Cheers!

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166210

Postby GeoffF100 » September 14th, 2018, 7:43 am

You could probably load a character based Linux and investigate from the command line, but I doubt whether that would get you anywhere. I expect the machine is knackered. The processor has a Passmark score of 320, which is very slow, so the machine is best written off.

JonE
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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166274

Postby JonE » September 14th, 2018, 11:41 am

GeoffF100 wrote:You could probably load a character based Linux and investigate from the command line, but I doubt whether that would get you anywhere.

Yep, that was my line of thought when I wrote: "I guess I could create a bootable generic-DOS CD but don't know what more that could tell me".
The processor has a Passmark score of 320, which is very slow, so the machine is best written off.

Wandering off-topic, I take the view that the slowest part of any of my computing systems is usually me: my thinking and input speeds are typically the main bottlenecks and throwing money at hardware upgrades doesn't really compensate for slow wetware for the kind of tasks I wish performed. The CPU in my Win7 desktop has a PassMark of 1109 and that in my current Linux desktop scores 321 but I somehow manage to get by without being irked by a lack of responsiveness - I can farm out hefty scripts and commands to leave my interactive machines responsive enough for my purposes but those non-interactive tasks are mostly constrained by my slow ADSL connection anyway so running them on speedier hardware wouldn't achieve much. If my requirements change then I'll review my approach: horses for courses.

I'm loathe to junk recoverable kit and this ex-laptop did (with occasional surgery) what was required of it until this failure but I must now agree that it's fallen off its perch and should be crammed into the 'donor kit' cupboard. At least it doesn't owe me anything as it was given to me over 5 years ago by someone upgrading to the (then) latest and greatest.

Cheers!

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166296

Postby GeoffF100 » September 14th, 2018, 12:48 pm

I had a quick look at what you could do from a Linux command line. You can ask what hardware you have, and what drivers you have. When I looked up graphics testing, I got benchmarking. You may get some clues as to what is happening, but I doubt whether there is a cure.

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166314

Postby Breelander » September 14th, 2018, 1:14 pm

JonE wrote:...The CPU in ... my current Linux desktop scores 321 but I somehow manage to get by without being irked by a lack of responsiveness...

I'm loathe to junk recoverable kit..


Me too :)

I have two laptops with near identical PassMarks, an AMD V120 2.2cGhz at 622 vs. Intel Atom N2600 1.6Ghz at 526. Both have 2GB RAM. One runs Win10 well, the other feels like swimming in treacle. Can you guess which?

No, it's not the obvious one. Apparently the slower Atom wins hands down because it has two physical cores and four logical processors, while the AMD is a single processor. Win10 seems to thrive on multi-core processors. I guess Linux may not be so fussy and/or demanding, which is why it runs well on older kit.

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166317

Postby Infrasonic » September 14th, 2018, 1:22 pm

Even if the screens gone maybe it could be put to use as a headless something or other?
Personal DNS server or similar?

I'll have another go at posting individual W10 Forum posts now that Bree has given me the secret sauce :) (fingers crossed...)
https://www.tenforums.com/browsers-emai ... ost1433918

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166325

Postby Breelander » September 14th, 2018, 1:45 pm

Infrasonic wrote:...now that Bree has given me the secret sauce :) (fingers crossed...)


That one works as intended, you'll be pleased to hear :)

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166428

Postby JonE » September 14th, 2018, 6:59 pm

Infrasonic wrote:Even if the screens gone maybe it could be put to use as a headless something or other?
Personal DNS server or similar?


Yeah, running headless devices is a sound concept in my book and VNC is my friend. As it happens, I'd come across the pi-hole project in July on the raspberrypi.org blog and had thought of using my under-employed 512MB Pi-B for it - my 256MB Pi-B from 06/2012 runs OSMC (and formerly Raspbmc) adequately for my uses and is the only Pi for which I have an mpeg-2 licence so it keeps the job.

One advantage of portables on the home network is that, in effect, they have an integrated UPS so, when the inevitable power cuts occur here, can keep going for a while with the network infrastructure running off a UPS. Unfortunately, the laptop's battery is pretty shot (but I've used it as a transportable/relocatable device rather than a true portable so that didn't matter) so it would need to be on my UPS if running pi-hole or other network services and might be a tad too power-hungry for me to find that comfortable.

Think I'll stick with Pi-B for pi-hole evaluation (real soon now) and cannibalise this laptop as I don't need yet another headless box and it has no unique hardware features to provide extra value: I've become reconciled to its EOL during the course of this thread so thanks to all posters.

Cheers!

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Re: Crazy laptop screen except for character-based display

#166466

Postby GeoffF100 » September 14th, 2018, 9:29 pm

Breelander wrote:I have two laptops with near identical PassMarks, an AMD V120 2.2cGhz at 622 vs. Intel Atom N2600 1.6Ghz at 526. Both have 2GB RAM. One runs Win10 well, the other feels like swimming in treacle. Can you guess which?

No, it's not the obvious one. Apparently the slower Atom wins hands down because it has two physical cores and four logical processors, while the AMD is a single processor. Win10 seems to thrive on multi-core processors. I guess Linux may not be so fussy and/or demanding, which is why it runs well on older kit.

Lubuntu uses far fewer threads than W10. The single processor may be slow because of all the context switching between all those threads.

The processor in my W10 machine has a Passmark score of about 6,500. The processor in my Lubuntu machine has Passmark score of about 1,700. The Lubuntu machine is noticeably slower for web browsing on some sites, and YouTube playback sometimes has some tiny imperfections that are not visible with the W10 machine, but the difference is not practically significant. The original processor in the Lubuntu machine had a Passmark score of about 850, and that did feel a little tardy.

It is good and instructive to keep old machines alive, but used modern machines are now so cheap that does not make economic sense unless you use cheap parts. There is a Dell tower on sale locally, with an asking price of £70. It has a fourth generation Haswell Pentium with a Passmark score of about 3,100.


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