y50-70 black screen

[laptom]

I have a Lenovo y50-70 that powers up, fans spins, keyboard lights up, 3 of the 4 front leds lights up (power, battery, hdd), but screen is black.

i7 4710HQ
GTX 860M

Things tested so far includes take out battery - hold power button, tested both on ac alone and battery alone, take out ram (only 1 stick) - test in both slots, inspecting motherboard visually - nothing appears blown as far as I can tell, checked and reseated monitor cable - appears fine as far as I can tell.

Things to test: create a boot usb (highly unlikely but I've seen so many suggest hdd issues/software issues for this model), external monitor (awaiting cable delivery)... last resort - reflow of gpu.

I have previous experience with failing gpu's in gaming laptops, and although some has presented themselves as black screens, artifacts have been a far more common symptom.

I have sent an email to Lenovo support but expect nothing considering it's out of it's warranty period.

Any further advice or input is greatly appreciated.

 

[webworkings]

Try this...

1. Turn the laptop off (not sleep or hibernate but off).
2. Connect an external monitor to the laptop.
3. Turn on the external monitor.
4. Turn on the laptop.

NOTE: You may have to press an "external monitor" button. Could be the f4 button or a button with two monitors on it, for the external monitor to work.

If you can see fine on the external monitor, then your attached display, or the ribbon cable that connects it, are your problem.

If you can't see on the external monitor at all, or the problem occurs on the external monitor as well, then it is probably the graphics card/GPU that is the problem, which may require the motherboard be replaced.

 

[laptom]

Try this...

1. Turn the laptop off (not sleep or hibernate but off).
2. Connect an external monitor to the laptop.
3. Turn on the external monitor.
4. Turn on the laptop.

NOTE: You may have to press an "external monitor" button. Could be the f4 button or a button with two monitors on it, for the external monitor to work.

If you can see fine on the external monitor, then your attached display, or the ribbon cable that connects it, are your problem.

If you can't see on the external monitor at all, or the problem occurs on the external monitor as well, then it is probably the graphics card/GPU that is the problem, which may require the motherboard be replaced.

Thanks for the reply. As I wrote in my initial post, I'm still awaiting delivery of the cable so I've been unable to test this (external monitor lacks hdmi).

I had really snowed in on it being a GPU issue, but can now confirm it was neither screen, gpu, or faulty motherboard (hardware), but a corrupt bios which I was able to recover by forcing a flash from usb drive (extracted .rom bios from lenovo's windows installer, renamed it to ZAVI2.rom, stuck it on usb, held fn + B at boot, few minutes later rebooted just fine).

 

[webworkings]

Awesome. Always nice to find the problem is a simple fix.

 

[koni5560]

Hey, I just recovered/reflashed my bios today. And I wanted to elaborate on the process for future users.

Here are the steps:

1. Get a BIOS file. Here is a link https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/Y50-Bios-3-03-problem/td-p/2178818
The third post down has different versions. I used V1.14. The latest version from the lenovo website has no .ROM file, so I guess it's not an option.

2. Open the file with 7zip. You'll have to download it by googling, it's free. Open the downloaded BIOS file (Should be called "9ecn31ww" by right clicking, going down to 7-zip => Open Archive.
Extract the file named WINZIVY2X64.ROM to a folder of your choice. Perhaps the desktop. The file will be 9 908 160 (bytes) in size. DO NOT FLASH A FILE THAT HAS A DIFFERENT FILE SIZE.



3. Part of the process requires your BIOS file to be correctly named in order for it to properly recover/flash. In this step we're going to rename the files to every possible combination of BIOS filenames.
Getting these names is a difficult proccess, that I honestly know nothing about.

Get Notepad++, it's also free.
Open WINZIVY2X64.ROM with Notepad++(regular Notepad does not work for this part, believe me I tried,it will simply save the names as WINZIVY2X64.BIN.ROM, same as using just the windows rename feature)


Now select 'Save As' and save it as the following: (Repeat the process for each file name. You should be getting several files each with a different name as you save more copies in the folder where you initially placed WINZIVY2X64.ROM)


WINZIVY2X64.BI

WINZIVY2X64.BIN

WINZIVY2X64.FD

WINZIVY2X64.ROM

WINZIVY2X64.WPH


ZIVY2.BI

ZIVY2.BIN

ZIVY2.FD

ZIVY2.ROM

ZIVY2.WPH


ZAVY2.BI

ZAVY2.BIN

ZAVY2.FD

ZAVY2.ROM

ZAVY2.WPH

4. Take a USB flash drive, go to "My computer" Right click on the USB drive and select Format. Change the filesystem from NTFS to FAT32. Format the drive.
The flash drive does not need to be a 'bootable' flash drive. Leave it as is.


5. Copy all the files from step 3 to the flash drive.



6. Unplug your laptop from the AC adapter.
Disconnect the battery from the motherboard.
With everything disconnected hold the power button for 20-30 seconds. This purges residual power from the board.
Disconnect the hard drive (This ensures that the USB flash drive is read first. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but it was the case when my flash worked)


7. Plug in your USB flash drive into any USB port.
8.HOLD Fn+B
9.While HOLDING Fn+B, plug in the AC adapter.
10. While still HOLDING Fn+B press the Power Button.

11. You should hear the fans turn on very loudly, no display, and no keyboard lights.
Let go of Fn+B after a few seconds
You should hear a rather loud series of beeps. This is the BIOS being flashed. Let it beep repeatedly as long as it needs to. When the process is done, the beeping will stop, and the laptop will turn itself off. It may also reboot.

If all went well, you're screen should now be working just fine. Put everything back together and help others out if they have the same problem. Feel free to ask me questions.

I also have to mention this part, because I firmly believe it was instrumental in my success:
While doing the process, I prayed like I never have before. And I mean prayed. To God. I've had it happen far too many times, where I've prayed and literally right then things started working, for me to think it's an accident. I feel like I'd be letting God down if I didn't bother letting others know that he helped. And I promised that if it worked, I would post my guide on the web. Not trying to convert anyone, or be weirdly religious, just doing what I think is right.