- Oct 25, 2013
- 1
- 0
- 10,510
(bad solder, have to overheat for it to work)... acting differently after converting to desktop.
The laptop has a somewhat common issue where the solder on the graphics chip turns brittle over time... when it cools, it breaks contact and the screen freezes up, and the display never works after that, unless you wrap the laptop in a blanket so that it overheats, which causes the solder to melt and make contact again. This fix is only temporary, but can be repeated.
I wanted to convert the laptop to a desktop, and hook up to an external monitor from the VGA port to see if that might work. I completely removed the top half of the laptop, unhooking the screen totally.
This worked great, and I was using the laptop/monitor as normal, but eventually the screen froze up again. This time, however, I didn't have to overheat the laptop... I just rebooted and the monitor kept working. Since then it has happened many times... the screen locks up, but every single time it always works again when I reboot.
So my question is, why has the behavior changed? If it's the same brittle solder issue as before, why do I no longer have to overheat the laptop to get it to work again? Could it be something else going on?
After setting this up, I tried to think about the problem more. Does using the VGA out port even bypass the graphics chip solder issue? After thinking about it, it seems like it wouldn't... but then why has the behavior changed? It has an HDMI port, but I'm not sure if that would bypass a bad graphics chip solder connection either.
Any ideas as to what is going on, and/or any possible solutions to be able to use it as a desktop?
I've updated the graphics and processor drivers.
The laptop has a somewhat common issue where the solder on the graphics chip turns brittle over time... when it cools, it breaks contact and the screen freezes up, and the display never works after that, unless you wrap the laptop in a blanket so that it overheats, which causes the solder to melt and make contact again. This fix is only temporary, but can be repeated.
I wanted to convert the laptop to a desktop, and hook up to an external monitor from the VGA port to see if that might work. I completely removed the top half of the laptop, unhooking the screen totally.
This worked great, and I was using the laptop/monitor as normal, but eventually the screen froze up again. This time, however, I didn't have to overheat the laptop... I just rebooted and the monitor kept working. Since then it has happened many times... the screen locks up, but every single time it always works again when I reboot.
So my question is, why has the behavior changed? If it's the same brittle solder issue as before, why do I no longer have to overheat the laptop to get it to work again? Could it be something else going on?
After setting this up, I tried to think about the problem more. Does using the VGA out port even bypass the graphics chip solder issue? After thinking about it, it seems like it wouldn't... but then why has the behavior changed? It has an HDMI port, but I'm not sure if that would bypass a bad graphics chip solder connection either.
Any ideas as to what is going on, and/or any possible solutions to be able to use it as a desktop?
I've updated the graphics and processor drivers.
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