Karaoke Forums

I was working Thur nite, everything was wonderful, then my extended lcd monitor went black, first thought was cable, I found a new short cable, hooked it up, still black, checked ac cord, its ok.. then it would come back on for maybe 1 minute then go black agian, I spent about 30 minutes checking the settings in display I would click on extended monitor then apply settings are right, I tried making extended monitor primary, no still black. this laptop is a dell inspiron 6400 about 2 years old runs xp its been a great laptop...
I had another old laptop in the van it about 6 or 7 years old, grabbed it hooked it up monitor works fine cables ok...I'm not real computor savvy, I think I paid about $700 at least 2 years ago, can't spend too much on repair, computer works great just ..no extended monitor... laptop monitor is fine...specs are'nt great but for my use it was fine..Inspiron 6400..1.6ghz...980mhz...504mb ram, running mtu hoster, maxtor external harddrive....any ideas or help sure would be appricated, thanks Ken

It sounds like there is a problem with your video out on the laptop side. Could be just the outgoing plug, could be your video card.

I would try to bring it to a company to get an estimate of the repair costs.

Have you tried a driver update?

It's not totally clear to me if you are talking about the VGA or the SVideo.

The Inspiron has been known to have troubles with the SVideo connector getting flaky in it's connection to the motherboard. I don't know if the VGA has the same history.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

another reason I dislike laptops. I much prefer desktop or tower units you can swap parts on rather easily.

Video goes BAD. Audio goes bAd... computer parts WILL fail! But I would just as soon as not replace the entire machine rather than a defective or worn part.

Have you tried it with another monitor.
Video out's from lapy's rarely go down.
70% of the time re-seating the flat screen cables
sort it out.

You have a definite point there. We might want to think about leaving the VGA plugged in on our show laptop....

The thing I am doing these days is using the VGA instead of the SVideo, which can without a doubt have issues after getting plugged into a thousand times and more.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Sorry I mis-read the post

I called dell explained my problem, they said it is the sound card or vga plug both are connected to the motherboard.. would have to replace motherboard...min.$450..I bought another laptop same model for $550.....I'm a senior type person my wife and I retired 10 years ago, and somehow got started doing Karaoke because we really enjoyed it.. well 10 years later its not nearly as much fun as it used to be. we just bought a nice motorhome and 24' pontoon boat were going fishing...how do we get out of this business, we have about 1500 discs and lots of misc. equipment, we live in a rural area, I may have to ebay or ideas? I have 2 good systems, will I get more selling by the piece or as a system ?........we're looking at Jan 1........thanks

Where are you located?

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

east texas