hp envy m6 broken screen no vga

[Ethan Z]

I have an hp envym6-1125dx with a broken scren and possibly other issues. I am trying to boot to bios using an external vga monitor. The broken screen lights up but the vga remains dark. I have tried the fn+f4 key but still nothing. I don't have a hard drive installed. I want to boot to the bios and once there try to install windows to ahard drive using the external monitor.
I have thrown a lot od $'s at this computer and do not want to rreplace the lcd unless I know that it is worth saving. Can anyone help? Is ther a way to enable he external vga at boot screen? Please let me know. Thanks

 

[BadAsAl]

According to the manual it is only f4 that switches the displays, have you tried just f4?

 

[Ethan Z]

According to the manual it is only f4 that switches the displays, have you tried just f4?

Yes. I have tried every combination. When I got the laptop I got no video at all. I replaced the processor and motherboard and finally got the broken screen to light up. But I still can't get any external video on either vga or hdmi. I even just tried using a magnet at top of touchpad right above the power button. With the magnet there (I guess simulating that the cover is close) the lcd would shut off, but still no external video through vga. With no os installed do think I could be lacking vga drivers? I just want to get into the bios and trying a fresh window install on a blank hard drive to see if it's worth buying a new screen Thanks

 

[BadAsAl]

On my HP I have to hit fn-f4 during the boot sequence and it will display to the external. Maybe try hitting del or f2 (which might get you into the BIOS but you can't see it on the broken screen) then hit fn-f4 or just f4.
Do you have another working laptop that you can borrow the hard drive from? If you can get the laptop into windows the f4 might work.
Have you tried booting with the keyboard disconnected from the motherboard? This was one of the oddest ones I came across. Water damage to the keyboard prevented the laptop from booting... without it connected it booted right up.
Is the broken screen actually cracked? Or what is broken about it?

 

[Ethan Z]

Thanks BadAsAl. I will Try some of your other sggestions. As far as a hard drive from another laptop. Will it boot? Doesn't Windows set up the os for specific models and manufacturers? And yes the screen is completely cracked. I have no good screen to test with and thats my problem. I have been throwing parts at this and have at least gotten the screen to light up.I had a similar HP and by replacing the mother board with a used one from ebay it worked fine.I bought this model on ebay. The seller stated that he dropped it hard. The hinges broke off and the screen cracked. I think he damaged the motherboard in the process. When I first got it I had a flashing cap light which is bad mobo or processor or both. I plan to test out the processor and if it's good put it up on ebay. Core i5 2nd gen. Anyways thanks for your suggestions and I will let you know. It's probably something stupid that I am overlooking. By the way I did try booting without the keyboard and that didn't help either. I don't want to give up now that I got the screen to at least light up. Another thing is I get no beeps to help identify other issues.

 

[Ethan Z]

To just add something I do get beeps if I hit f10 key too many times in aggravation. Lol. I also tried withn no memory in and that was what I expected, nothing.

 

[BadAsAl]

A hard drive from another laptop should boot as long as the SATA mode settings are the same... when you install Windows you can choose to use IDE, AHCI, or RAID as the SATA mode within the BIOS (sorry if you already know this) and Windows will only boot if this matches. Most modern laptops use AHCI. Anyway, Windows will still boot provided this setting is okay, you just will be missing drivers and might break the activation (which can be fixed easily). It is worth a shot, if it boots and you get something on the external, you know that a new LCD will be the final fix.
I sympathize with you. I got a similar deal and it turned out to be someone unloading a failed repair project on me. I ended up replacing so many parts just to get it working that it cost me more than a working newer replacement! I hope that is not the case here!

 

[Ethan Z]

So here is what I found out. The newer computers that have Windows 8 pre-installed have a UEFI boot and a Legacy boot in the bios. If the Legacy boot is disabled (as was in this case) you can't boot or change to an external monitor. You can do absolutely nothing unless you have a working LCD so that you can access the bios and change to the Legacy Boot settings. And by changing this value you must input a code that the bios gives you. In this case I had a 14" screen from another project ( a Samsung Q430) that I am working on, that had a 40 pin connector that fit this video connector. I plugged that LCD in and presto, I got video. There are other issues which I will not go into at this time (hard drive failures). But I was able to navigate the bios and enable the Legacy Boot (which is a mirror of the UEFI boot). By enabling this I was then able to change the boot order to run my Windows 7 CD and get into the setup menu. This also enabled my external monitor so that now I could see what I was doing on that. I did some research and found that the UEFI Boot is a security feature of Windows 8 that prevents malware and even an older Windows version from being installed. I HATE WINDOWS 8!!!!! And always have with it's stupid touchscreen-Apps interface. Microsoft you can do so much better than trying to copy iOS and Android Systems! This is not a pocket or hand held device!! Anyways I got past that and then doom. I stopped getting video to the LCD screen that got me this far. So in my infinate but stupid wisdom I decided to revert the settings back to factory defaults. Now as this laptop had come in two pieces and the video cable had seeen a lot of stress, I now don't know if I have entered video Hell or not. I get no VGA output or LCD output. I have ordered a new video cable and LCD. Now that I had it working. I have some smaller SATA drives that I will try to install Windows 7 on. But now I am in wonder if I will see anything, even with the new parts. Did I do something to disable both the LCD and external monitor? Did I short out the video chip by playing around with the cables toom much? The laptop powers on but I can't see what I'm doing. I think that God Himself can't help me now. To be continued........

 

[BadAsAl]

The disaster one I mentioned in my last post was a Q430. Replaced motherboard, LCD, and some other parts. Ended up spending about $400 on the darn thing and got it all working only to have some keys go bad on the keyboard a week later. The keyboard is not really replaceable on the Q430 as it is basically plastic soldered on. I unloaded it for $100 just to get rid of it. I was at least honest with the buyer and told him everything that was done to it and he was okay with buying it anyway.

Keep us updated... hopefully the new LCD and cable get you back up and running.

 

[Skark166]

I have a similar situation with an HP Envy M6-1105dx. The monitor or the cable on the laptop is no longer functional.

The system was having issues booting and I couldn't see what was going on, even with an external monitor hooked up. The display wouldn't come on until it booted into Windows (which it wasn't at the time).

I did find a decent solution, if you remove the keyboard, underneath in the upper left corner (around where the F3 and F4 keys would be) is the monitor connection. I unplugged that and wrapped it in electrical tape so it wouldn't be connected anymore. Sealed it all back up and booted with the external monitor connected. The system automatically used the external monitor right off the bat, since the on-board display was no longer available.

 

[robert600]

I vaguely recall someone saying that if you disconnect the ribbon cable to the lcd screen - it will then default to the external monitor. Might be worth a try.