Dell Latitude boots to total gray screen

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Hey all,

A few months ago I got an old 400mhz dell latitude (model PMP), just to be able to program pi micro-controllers at school. So I didn't need much power or a cd or floppy drive or any thing special so I just got this little striped down $100 one on ebay.

I got all the software and drivers I needed to program, and It was working great, but since it was old the battery would only hold a charge for an hour or so and shut it self off.

One day me and my friend decided to just turn it back on (impatiently) after it shut off, and it came on, and stayed on for an hour or so. I thought this was great and I could just do this all the time, but of course after a hour or so it just died from loss of power.

Any way when I plugged it back in and turned it on it booted up to a completely grey screen, and thats what it has done ever since. Now when you turn it on it makes one short little click and brings up a grey screen, (no bios screen or password prompter once so ever) and if you wait about a minute or so it beeps 2 times and restarts and does the same thing over. I tried cntl+alt+del, cntl+alt+enter, hitting the button that brings up the bios and even taking it apart and unplugging the cmos battery and nothing helps.

I realize that this thing is just a old piece of junk, and I did something really stupid :eek: but I would still like to get it working again (mostly out of curiosity.) Like resetting the bios or something.

Any help is Much! Appreciated!

Thanks!
 
This is a laptop right? Have you tried connecting and external monitor to see if it displays properly? Maybe the system RAM has died
 
This is a laptop right? Have you tried connecting and external monitor to see if it displays properly? Maybe the system RAM has died

Thanks for answering. I just tried connecting the laptop to an external monitor, and it worked, the ram got a little messed up, but at least the laptop works. I got into the bios and reset every thing and it boots up just fine, but its main monitor (built in one) is still messed up (gray).

any one know why just the built in monitor doesn't work, when the external does? Does something need to be reset, or is the monitor just dead?

Thanks for any help!
 
There may also be a broken wire in the cable that goes from the laptops motherboard to the LCD. Or the LCD inverter board may be bad. Both these troubles are easily fixed, by a qualified technician. The LCD screen or panel is probably ok
 
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