Computers/ PC

HP Pavilion Entertainment PC

Problem Cont: Display flickers.  Reboot, monitor flickers and is hard to read and the display eventually shuts off where you are no longer able to determine if there is a problem with the computer or just the display.  Customer pretty much given up on usage as the machine no longer is usable as it had been in the past.

Methodology Cont:

With these two methods engaged, could see the laptop was booting.  It in fact completed the boot process.  However, the video display for the laptop was flickering as the customer mentioned to the degree that it barely stayed on.  At first I thought it was the screen saver engaging but then realized that the external display was very clear and the screen saver was not engaged.  I proceeded to login and this behavior continued.  The fan made a higher than normal buzzing sound which could indicate problems with either one fan failing or both or there may have been some reason why the fan seem to rev up in rpms.   During this period of time the external display continued to work perfectly.  

The next test was to evaluate the video drivers.  I first went to the control panel to view the settings.  Windows 7.  I guess to be exact, Windows 6.1.7601.

To make a 20 minute troubleshooting task shorter I will fast forward to the observation that there was a NVDIA Control panel and I also noticed that here were some 3D settings.  I unchecked these settings and did my best to just reset everything back to standard display mode.  When I did this I could see the main display (internal) display come back on and the colors were correct.  I continued to turn the computer off and on to make sure it wasn't a onte time event.

Fix/Solve:

Turns out it was a bad display setting that changing incrementally until the video display worked properly for the internal display was all that was needed.  Even with the changes in video settings, the external monitor never was set to a non-displayable mode.  I then disconnected the external monitor and rebooted many times and the display remained how it should appear.