ASUS Laptop, blank grey screen?

[Midsmartin]

It sounds like hardware, yes. Try a local IT repair shop. They might be open for non-contact handover for repair. It likely just needs a new screen or possibly connecting cable. Screens are quite cheap (often £30-50 give or take, depending on the make/model/type) and often it's only a 5 minute to job to change them, but it can be trickier on a badly designed laptop.

If you wanted to try yourself, you have to have precisely the correct screen (usually from ebay), a small crosspoint screwdriver, and you run the risk that you swap the screen and it still doesn't work.

If you have a spare computer monitor in the house, you can probably connect your laptop up to it. If you're lucky you'll see that it's actually working fine, confirming that a new screen is what you need.

[kempiejon]

I'm always keen to power down, take the lead out and remove the battery and let the bugger sit for a while before a restart, on all problems. I guess you can test the screen using an alternative if you've a video out and suitable 2ndary screen and cable. If your laptop has an hdmi and your tv does too that should be an easy check. Windows + [P] up/down arrows, return toggles between views single, duplicate and extend you might need to try a few goes.

[Infrasonic]

There's a long thread here from someone who ended up successfully replacing their laptop screen, some of it might help, although their symptoms were different.
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=21645

[Itsallaguess]

Not sure what to do next.

Presently, I am minded to take out the Crucial 1Tb SSD that I installed replacing the old HDD. And chuck the carcass in the recycling bin.

How recently did you swap out the hard-drive for the SSD?

Just wondering if you might have disturbed one of the many delicate ribbon-cables that often exist internal to these laptops, and if the SSD swap out was a proper 'open-case' job, then is it worth going back in to check on that before you toss it towards the bin, in a very-much 'nothing left to lose' approach, perhaps?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Breelander]

The engineer in me says that the screen is clearly back lighting OK. So the ribbon cable must be secure....

The power for the backlight is usually on a separate wire, the ribbon cable is for data. Plus there are circuits in the display panel that decode the data and address the individual pixels. There are several potential failure modes besides the backlight.

Can you connect the laptop to an alternative display to test if the rest of it still works? An HDMI cable could connect it to your TV, for example.

[Infrasonic]

I've had stripey phone screens when replacing them before now, and reseating the ribbon cable solved it. Sometimes the connectors appear to be square but are actually at a slight angle and the pins aren't making full contact. As laptops get moved around then there's always the possibility something has shifted after a knock, or a ribbon cable has got chafed/pinched through general screen movement.


Depending on the screen it will either have a captive cable with a connector on the motherboard end or a connector at each end, which could possibly be replaced if that is the issue.

[Breelander]

Unfortunately, I do not have a HDMI cable to connect the laptop to the TV. And because of the lock down, I can't really borrow one.

I believe Amazon are still taking orders and delivering...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=hdmi+cable

[elkay]

In between posts, I have broken/remade the ribbon edge connector behind the panel. It too was taped over and firmly in place. Grey screen still. I may have to diagnose it by buying a HDMI cable I don't need. That will be conclusive about the panel health. Thanks.

RVF.

Do you have any other equipment you can borrow the cable from? E.g. Sky Box, VM box, DVD player etc.

[servodude]

Anyway, due to stuff happening, only today did I get a HDMI cable. Laptop duly hooked up to the TV. Laptop switches on and boots fine to the TV screen. Conclusive that it's the display panel that has failed? A ten minute job to fit a new one, I already have the existing one removed. Biggest problem now I think will be finding one that can be delivered during the lock down.

yes it's likely to be the panel or some of the bits on that side of the ribbon anyway
- there's not normally too much stuff on the main motherboard related to the display

either way though you've now got a "smart TV" !

good luck
- sd

[Infrasonic]

Anyway, due to stuff happening, only today did I get a HDMI cable. Laptop duly hooked up to the TV. Laptop switches on and boots fine to the TV screen. Conclusive that it's the display panel that has failed? A ten minute job to fit a new one, I already have the existing one removed. Biggest problem now I think will be finding one that can be delivered during the lock down.

If you've got a multimeter you could do a bit of end to end continuity testing on the ribbon cable to see if that's faulty, and/or possibly some of the relevant motherboard bits like rectifiers et al, with the aid of a schematic and some YouTube videos.
Last thing you want is to get a new screen panel and find it still doesn't work.

[xeny]

Anyway, due to stuff happening, only today did I get a HDMI cable. Laptop duly hooked up to the TV. Laptop switches on and boots fine to the TV screen. Conclusive that it's the display panel that has failed? A ten minute job to fit a new one, I already have the existing one removed. Biggest problem now I think will be finding one that can be delivered during the lock down.

If you routinely open/close the laptop, I'd be more suspicious of the ribbon cable.

[xeny]

It's a little difficult to explain here. But the way the laptop is hinged, the ribbon cable itself is not subject to bending when opening/closing the screen. The panel backlights, but stays grey, showing no image.

I'd presume there's some form of connection being flexed when the laptop is opened/closed? Moving parts are full of the potential for pain.

[Infrasonic]

Glad you got it fixed.

As an aside there is a movement towards making things 'home' fixable both here and in the USA, in the US they are looking at legislation to force OEM's to prevent them from designing kit that is only repairable by their technicians. (I say repair, in fact they mostly swap out the motherboard these days as it's quicker and cheaper than actually 'repairing' anything). Local to me there's several 'repair cafe' setups that meet bi/monthly with tools and knowledgeable volunteers across a spectrum (IT, bikes etc.)

There's a lot of modern portable equipment thats uses hot glue, soldered components, that make DIY/3rd party repairs difficult to nearly impossible. There are legitimate reasons for it like reliability and lower profiles as the demand for thinner and lighter increases the marketing pressures, but It's something I always check for now when looking to buy, especially anything higher end that I'm looking at keeping for 5+ years or so.

[Infrasonic]

Thanks again. I have been wondering this afternoon, just how many two or three year old laptops end up being thrown away when all they need is a new screen? I wanted to fix mine, it's a decent spec machine, three and a bit years old. It may easily last me another three years now.

Cheers.

RVF

I've still got a fully functioning Dell Inspiron P11 266 from 1998, the only thing that has gone is the plastic hinge covers. Fully modular, built like a tank, weighs a ton, completely useless in a modern app/web capacity (but still boots W98 in around 30 seconds). Survived a few coffee spills without a grumble too...

[Breelander]

...it's a decent spec machine, three and a bit years old. It may easily last me another three years now.

LOL - you should get a lot longer use out of it than that!

Even my newest machine is three years old. Collecting laptops has become a bit of an obsession a hobby of mine, I get them second hand and update them to Windows 10.

The longest serving and hardest used of my machines was built in 2011. I got it around 2014, took the W10 upgrade in 2015. It's currently running the latest version 1909 and still in daily use. It's fully functional and nothing has ever needed replacing, but it's not a pretty sight - I have used it for so long that on the palmrest I have worn though the pretty silver-coloured surface of the touchpad to expose the black plastic beneath .

The evidence is here: https://i.imgur.com/xst3RBU.png

[Infrasonic]

Even my newest machine is three years old. Collecting laptops has become a bit of an obsession a hobby of mine, I get them second hand and update them to Windows 10.

You should do us a buying guide thread Bree.

I've always shied away from SH/OEM refurbished but looking at some of the deals available I'm becoming less and less inclined to pay for new, even with the steep discounts I always wait for. With smartphones especially it seems crazy to pay nearly £1k for a top end model when waiting even just a year can get it for a fraction.

[Infrasonic]

Possibly. It's a 5th generation i7 dual core, 8Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD. Perhaps I may be using it in five years time, I don't know. It's getting a bit short on RAM. But the maximum supported is only 12Gb, and I'd have to remove 4Gb and refit 8Gb. I looked yesterday, 8Gb of DDR3 RAM at the right clock speed is surprisingly un-cheap.

8GB should be fine with W10 (barring VM's or other RAM intensive tasks), especially with a 1TB SSD taking up the slack on the swap/page file front, which if it has a DRAM and SLC cache should be pretty nippy.

Where are the bottlenecks occurring?
Have you checked task manager/performance (and resource monitor) to see what the CPU/disk specific file path usage is like during slowdowns?

[Infrasonic]

Possibly. It's a 5th generation i7 dual core, 8Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD. Perhaps I may be using it in five years time, I don't know. It's getting a bit short on RAM. But the maximum supported is only 12Gb, and I'd have to remove 4Gb and refit 8Gb. I looked yesterday, 8Gb of DDR3 RAM at the right clock speed is surprisingly un-cheap.

8GB should be fine with W10 (barring VM's or other RAM intensive tasks), especially with a 1TB SSD taking up the slack on the swap/page file front, which if it has a DRAM and SLC cache should be pretty nippy.

Where are the bottlenecks occurring?
Have you checked task manager/performance (and resource monitor) to see what the CPU/disk specific file path usage is like during slowdowns?

Thanks for the comments, for sure, Win10 is just fine. It's a fine OS. With the SSD start up and shutdown is amazingly fast (I replaced the slow 1Tb HDD with the SSD). More the case of a couple of browsers with multiple tabs open and Skype video sessions at the same time. It's very live-able with, but not quite as good as I think it would be if it supported say 16Gb of RAM.

Cheers.

RVF.

I'd bet it's CPU not RAM...

I've got a quad core 4th Gen i5 in my desktop and 8GB of RAM, run it in 'high performance' mode. I run up to three browsers multi tabbed simultaneously plus Skype et al (Logitech C920 in 1080P/30) and the CPU starts to get pretty toasty (50-60°+) and the fans ramp up noticeably with Skype running.

A lot of laptops will thermally throttle the CPU as they prioritise 'quietness' for marketing reasons and have ACPI profiles in the UEFI (BIOS) to match. Often those profiles aren't editable at the admin user level (although you can fiddle to a certain extent in the advanced settings in W10 power profile settings...[search/power/edit power plan/change advanced power settings]).

The exception is the gaming/workstation class laptops, and if you've ever heard one of those flat out you'll understand why the fan noise is such a marketing issue...

[Breelander]

ou should do us a buying guide thread Bree.

I've always shied away from SH/OEM refurbished but looking at some of the deals available I'm becoming less and less inclined to pay for new, even with the steep discounts I always wait for....

OK, my 'supplier of choice' is CashConverters, sadly in covid-19 lock-down at the moment. When the website is back from 'self-isolation' you can browse their entire UK stock and order online (to pick up in-store or have delivered). If possible I prefer to find one that's in a local branch so I can test before buying.

I go for the business models from well known brands, the Dell Latitude rage for example. I'm currently typing this on a Dell Latitude E4310 (Intel Core-i5, 4GB RAM) which came with W7 and now runs W10 1909, 18363.778. A 'bargain-basement' buy at £69. My top-end machine is a Dell Latitude E7270 (6th gen i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1920x1080p touchscreen), my most expensive toy machine so far at £325.

[Watis]

ou should do us a buying guide thread Bree.

I've always shied away from SH/OEM refurbished but looking at some of the deals available I'm becoming less and less inclined to pay for new, even with the steep discounts I always wait for....

OK, my 'supplier of choice' is CashConverters, sadly in covid-19 lock-down at the moment. When the website is back from 'self-isolation' you can browse their entire UK stock and order online (to pick up in-store or have delivered). If possible I prefer to find one that's in a local branch so I can test before buying.

I go for the business models from well known brands, the Dell Latitude rage for example. I'm currently typing this on a Dell Latitude E4310 (Intel Core-i5, 4GB RAM) which came with W7 and now runs W10 1909, 18363.778. A 'bargain-basement' buy at £69. My top-end machine is a Dell Latitude E7270 (6th gen i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1920x1080p touchscreen), my most expensive toy machine so far at £325.

Breelander - do you wipe the hard disk to remove any malware before allowing a newly acquired laptop onto your network?

Watis