so this happened to my friend. She uses Monster Abra and its 3 years old. Yesterday she played valorant and turned it off then today her pc just didnt open. No the correct term is her pc was clearly working but screen was dark as hell. We tried everything be it resetting bios battery or trying to use a secondary monitor but nope. So we obviously went to an expert and he said that bill could be 500 dollars? I am a software engineering senior and i know a little bit about hardware and prices. Isnt this too much??? And what could this error possibly be? We are about to enter our exam week and this has to be solved. Any idea anyone? And for the record we tried youtube video and forum tips too. and i also want to add that my guess is her pc's motherboard burned. It happened to me years ago and i know that it can happen if you use your pc to play hard games for too long but hers is a gaming laptop so this one seems unlikely.
I have googled yet only found laptop with the name Monster Abra, and if the faulty one were the GPU on the motherboard, it's damn well about 350 just for the usable motherboard alone in my country. However it could also be about heat problem, dust buildup and crusty thermal paste or even faulty power supply to the GPU. You should check with your technician for thorough examination
Probably asking the obvious question: Have you tried cleaning it? I heard dust build up could cause black screen.
Ok, you tried external monitor and it also didn't work. It points that there might be a problem with the graphics card or some other hardware pieces. Was anything spilled on the laptop, was it dropped even a little? Maybe something a bit heavy was placed on it or maybe it overheated and died from either either dust or just sitting on a soft surface with the ventilation blocked. In any case, this seem like you would likely need parts to be replaced, so it might indeed cost a lot. Depending on how much you need to replace. But for 500 they probably just want to swap out most of the insides for you, or maybe they are saying it's in the worst case if swapping out most insides needs to be done. If you are doubting, you can take the laptop to several repair shops and see what they say. As for your exam week, there are many solutions. You could buy a cheap laptop for emergencies. Sometimes school provides a loaner laptops, so you/she might be able to get one from your school. Or just borrow older/unneeded laptop from someone... In case you have to have data from the laptop, you can just take out the disk and put it in an enclosure and access all the data.
Nope she didnt spill anything. Just turned it off after playing valorant. We found a PC for her but its a short term solution. Her family isnt well off so if its more than 100 bucks they wont be able to pay repair bill. We may solve it personaly so i am open to suggestions.
You cannot fix a laptop without experience and proper equipment. Unless you already have electronics lab set up with multimeter and oscilloscope and a soldering iron and know how to buy replacement microchips, it's just not gonna happen, especially not on the cheap. The easiest way is to find a replacement graphics card and swap it out to see what happens, but even if you buy a used one, it might go for more than 100 dollars or you might run into a scam and buy a defective one. Unless you have someone who can run low-level diagnostics on circuit boards for you for low amount of money, it might be better to consider that laptop as dead and get a new one. You can try and search around for a good repair shops that can do this kind of diagnostics. You will have to pay them for it, but they will be able to tell you exactly what is wrong with the laptop. Usually the diagnostics would be a lot cheaper than a repair, but that would essentially be "paying for nothing". What I want to know, when you say this does it mean that you can see bios and the screen is working fine, but when it loads to the OS it goes dark? Or is the screen always dark and you tried to do something like pulling out a battery and hitting "clear cmos" button?
Thank you for replying! We found the reason. Motherboard was burned because she silenced the fans. She didnt wanted her roommates to wake up so her fans werent working properly and this issue caused heating whic led motherboard to get burned. We will buy another one and my friend from EEE and one of our profs will change it.
Figures it's that... I don't know if you can actually get just the motherboard for a laptop, it's not always possible, but you might be able to get one from a used laptop of the same model.
Update we did it! As above mentioned we found the exact same model whic wasnt used by previous owner and after striking a deal (cost only +80 dollars) we changed motherboards and it works for now. She will only use it for a couple of months then after New term she will buy a New PC. Its enough time for her to work part time and save money. Thank you for replying and offering solutions all this time.
First see if the fans spinning, when trying to turn on screen with power plugin. If the fans spin, try to plug a HDMI monitor while allowing multiscreen duplicate mode with FN keys. If the fans don't spin, it's will be more complicated. Could be many issues with motherboard. If you have a screen, you can just test with another screen with 40pin cables. Also make sure your laptop monitor's backlight is powered, if your laptop have additional 4 or 6 pin power on the screen. An example of a screen, although I his screen is made by LG, for apple, 27inch definitely not laptops but the driver board is same for most laptopm A 40 pin connector And a 6pin power connector for back light. The screen will appear black if the back light is not connected although laptop screen with backlight connector is rare. But there are some that need more power. It's usually really hard to get a board replacement, you are quite fortunate. Yeah, true. But then not all laptop are so simple. well personally I need the electronic schematic for most repairs, I heard there are some masters that don't need such a thing. If the company don't publish them, or there are no schematics that got leaks some where its most likely a lost case. most of the shop that I came across are not that expensive, actually basic component level of repair are quite cheap, but you need to wait quite some times. Most people prioritise time over all the labor. Examples, I'm know to replace c case Instead of removing the glue on the keyboard for a keyboard replacement, many my friend also dose it. But there are also some of my friends says it only cost 10 minutes to heat up the glue, it just a little step to say save like 2 dollars.
Okay we are gonna do the things you said. PC works for now but its slower than usual. I also think that fans dont work properly. Also we checked backlight and its connected so no problem there. The motherboard wasnt exactly burned but it wasnt okay too. We dont exactly know what its the problem with it. I will buy her pc and try to fix it just for fun lol