A31 with video problems,i think...

[SaberX]

Well i have an A31 with P-4 M 1.6Ghz/16 meg ATI video.
I have been useing this one for only a about a week now.
But last night while playing a video there was abunch of lines/dots blinking of and on.But only in the video screen part.The rest of the desktop looks fine.
When playing the video now i get the lines. BUT when i push just above the power button or push down on top of the lcd screen(like i'm trying to push the lcd through the desk when it's open) the video plays fine.

I'm also thinking it could be a lose cable from the lcd .

But what are the sign's to watch out for if the video chip is going?
I only had this A31 for about two weeks and dont realy want to go looking for a systemboard so soon.

[rkawakami]

Sounds exactly like the A31 I bought a couple of weeks ago. When booting, sometimes the display shows random blocks of various colors or stripes. I turn it off and then back on again and it looks fine. Windows appears to work okay (have not yet tried playing any videos on this machine) but I have noticed a slight color shift appearing if you grab a window and move it around the desktop. I think that the problem went away if you minimized the window and re-drew it again.

All of this is usually indicative of a video memory problem. It could be a bad memory chip, loose or bad connection of the memory chip to the motherboard or the video graphics chip itself. I'm planning on tearing the unit apart in a couple of days and see if anything is obviously wrong.

I have downloaded a copy of PC Doctor for DOS for the A31 from here:

Software/drivers for A31

Scroll down to the Diagnostics section and choose the diskette or CD versions. I have run the Video diags and they have failed a couple of the memory tests so I'm pretty sure it's not a problem with a loose ribbon cable.

[SaberX]

Thanks for that link Ray.
I just downloaded the dos boot disk one and ran it.
Went into the video part of it and ran all 8 test.
It failed 6 of the tests and only pased 2 of them.
So i guess i have a laptop with a bad video chip or ram.

I dont realy want to start looking for another system board for this one.From what i can see in my quick serch of e-bay.The A31 system board with 2.0Ghz is over $200.00!!!
I would rather put that money into another laptop.
So looks like i may have this A31 for sale....
This brings me to another question....What would a laptop with the video going bad worth?
Say it's the A31 " 2652-J3U ".
It will have the 1.6Ghz,14.1 XGA lcd(one small dark spot,not bad tho)24X cd-rom,bat will hold charge for about 1/2 hr (give or take 10 min's,512 meg DDR 333 ram(2 X 256's),mini docking station,System is all in tact with all parts their.

[sausage888]

I believe that you can disable your video accelerator and run without it, if that is the only source of your problem.