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Black screen of death?

post #1 of 11
2/28/07 at 1:30pm
Thread Starter 
Okay, so today I got home, turned on my power transformer that is my old 8790 is hooked up to and started to turn her on. It beeped at me, and gave the old flashing caps/num/scroll lock trick and then turned itself off. I figured I hadn't given the power enough time to register so I tried it again after ensuring it was registered as plugged in. (My battery has been dead for quite some time now) Again, no go. So I cracked her open did a quick cleaning and plugged her back in again. Now she will start up, and I get the bios and the normal detection items coming up as well as the ability to go into the startup. But after that, it won't load anything else, it just sits there with a blank black screen. Any thoughts or suggestions to try? I'm kicking myself on this one as I hadn't moved all my old data over to my new computer because it was just so handy sitting there to use as my web browsing computer.
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post #2 of 11
2/28/07 at 4:40pm
Are you able to boot from a CD? (Try with XP if you have a disk lying around)
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post #3 of 11
2/28/07 at 5:04pm
Thread Starter 
Well I dug up the recovery cd that came with the computer, and it didn't do a thing. The Boot from CD option came up, but nothing registered. I then found an old Win2K full version cd and it came up with the installation screen. I canceled that as I'm not ready to give up on my data just yet.

I assume this means that somehow my HD fried?
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post #4 of 11
2/28/07 at 5:36pm
The lights blinking and the beeps the first time trouble me. It could be a fried mobo. Are you able to remove your hdd and slave it to another machine?
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post #5 of 11
2/28/07 at 7:14pm
Thread Starter 
I'm not sure, I could try slaving it to my mALX, but I'm not certain if the HD's are the same standard.
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post #6 of 11
3/3/07 at 8:49am
Thread Starter 
Well I cracked open the mALX to take a peak at the second HD space, and sure enough it's a different standard. Would hooking the HD up to a different laptop work to check if the HD is okay, as in not slaved but it's own primary HD? I think some of the Dell's at work might have the same standard of HD and I could probably abuse one of those long enough to check.

Other than that, I suppose I can check on my extended warranty and try to figure that out, but I have a feeling that they won't care about the data on the HD. But as a last resort, I might as well.
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post #7 of 11
3/3/07 at 2:24pm
No, it would not work as a primary hard drive in anything other than an identical 8790, because of the drivers. Your OS would flip out.

Your extended warranty will replace the hdd if you say it's bad, but yeah, they would probably erase the data and throw it out. If there's a retail electronics store in your area, you should invest in an external notebook hard drive enclosure. That way you can hook up your hdd via USB to any computer and get the data off it (granted the hdd is readable). Once you do that, send her in and get yourself a new mobo.
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post #8 of 11
3/3/07 at 4:09pm
Thread Starter 
Hmm, off to check online to find one of those external notebook hard drive enclosures then. Though if it's actually worth it to get a new mobo again, I'm not sure, this will be mobo number 4 if I get another new one.
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post #9 of 11
3/3/07 at 11:52pm
Might as well since you still have a warranty. Just go easy on games and heavy processing, and it should hopefully last longer. Do you monitor its internal temps and the like?
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post #10 of 11
3/4/07 at 10:57pm
Thread Starter 
yeah, but then I still have to pay for shipping and whatnot, and this computer has been more of a headache then it's really worth. but I probably will since it's cheaper than buying a new computer (oh how we get spoiled with age) I haven't done more then websurf on it since I got my new computer, and yeah I always run the heat monitor program, I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head now though. But I really do think something's been wrong with it since day one as it never turned off the fans or turned them quiet at all. I told them that the first time I sent it in, but oh well. Guess it's 'normal' for my machine.
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post #11 of 11
3/15/07 at 7:05am
Thread Starter 
Well, my hotdrive arrived today and I plugged in my old HD and hooked it up to my ALX and it wsa instantly recogonized. So now I'm saving my data before I go any further with my Sager. Of course I'm having issues getting to my favorites information since gee I'm not logged on as that user... ah well I'll figure that out soon enough, I'm just glad to have been able to save all of my documents and pictures and everything. Although, this means the HD is fine and it's probably the Mobo being ****ed up again, *sigh*.
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