Use USB to VGA display for dead Graphics in Laptiop

[brucewol]

Hello,
I've got an HP DV6500Z with a dead onboard graphics card in a laptop. Neither the laptop display or external VGA port work. So I'm wondering if I could use a USB connected monitor to boot up. I've found a repair place that can give me a permanent fix but they prefer a disk drive in the unit along with the password. I've taken the disk out and deleted all my personal data. I would like be able to boot up and add a new generic user or change the password on my account before I sent it to the repair place.

Will I be able to get into bios with the display or do I first need to boot up. I can boot up by assuming I'm at the logon screen, typing in the password. I've verified that I can boot by looking at my network shares from another computer. Wondering if all I can hope for is usb plug and play will work or there is something more I can do. Traveling for 2 days, will check when I get back. Thanks

 

[alvine]

there is no such thing as usb to vga
usb carries data and vga carries video signal
no you can;t boot up if the video card is not working

"I've found a repair place that can give me a permanent fix but they prefer a disk drive in the unit along with the password." they want a password protected disk? how will this help them fix the video card??

you cant boot up unless you get that video card fixed...in laptops they are integrated into the motherboards so you will have tog et the whole motherboard replaced

 

[Alabalcho]

there is no such thing as usb to vga

There are external USB Video cards (first pick from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-External-Video-Card-GUC2015V/dp/B000NJFJJK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1360778884&sr=1-1&keywords=external+video+card+for+laptops). It is another question whether one will be able to install them "blind", without access to read video.

As for Brucewol' question: I am wondering why that place needs working Windows installation in order to fix the video - they can boot Linux off CD to verify video operation.

 

[brucewol]

Well, I've got a fix. Never was able to get the USB/VGA adapter installed blindly. I noticed that when I installed the adapter on a machine with working video, you need to agree to license terms and although I could boot blindly and enter in the password, I couldn't get the adapter configured.

So what I did was take out the disk and use it a a boot disk in a desktop machine with a working video card. The laptop had dual boot W7 and XP. Since a lot of drivers for the desktop were not present on the laptop disk, when the system did come up it had a pretty lowlevel configuration that was some what fixed by adding drivers via a USB stick. Of the two OS's, W7 was the easiest to get working, it went into startup repair and then was able to boot.

From this point, I added LogMeIn, and deleted my users and added a new user for the repairs guys. Also deleted my personal files but could have done this with a USB/Sata adapter. But I needed the system booted to add and delete users.

The I put the disk back into the laptop. Never was able to get it to boot into XP. But W7 came up without a hitch. So now with remote access via LogMeIn, I could check everything out to make sure all my personal files was really gone.

Alabalcho - yes the repair guys could boot up with Linux and do a lot of verification and it probably would be okay. But laptops have a lot of drivers that need to be used to verify that all the components get properly connected after disassembly. In a desktop, not too big a deal if a sound card is not seated right in it's pci slot. But would be a major problems if the assembly is screwed up in a laptop and no way to verify all this without logging in to the installed OS. So I'm glad that I was able to get the laptop bootable without any of my personal user data.

Alvine - As Albalcho wrote, there are numerous USB/VGA adapters I got mine from Amazon fro about $35. As to the motherboard, there is a technigue called reflow where they heat up the motherboard enough that the solder reconnects the video components. The solder connections breaking down on video components is a known problem on laptops. Hopefully for around $90 I'll get my problem fixed and get another year or two out of the laptop.

 

[brucewol]

Best answer selected by brucewol.