Video disappears-HP Presario v2000

[jcanker]

I have a friend's HP Presario v2000 (v2670 NR, actually). It boots fine; I see the POST and can enter BIOS setup, can get the F8 menu, etc.

The problem is that once anything loads past that point, the video disappears. If loading into Windows XP, I get the initial Windows loading screen, then it goes black. Not dark, but black--I can see the backlight around the edges (pressing the lid position switch makes it go completely dark; releasing it brings the backlight back).

Same symptoms if I choose the "Last known good config" option. If I choose Safe Mode, it hangs at mup.sys.

It's not just a windows problem, however. If I load any boot disc, I get the basic menu/initial start up options, and then when the main program loads the same thing happens--just a blank screen. For example, my Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows loads the splash screen, gives me the menu. When I select to launch Ultimate Boot, I get the status bar as it loads, but when it finishes, the video disappears. The Kaspersky Rescue Disc loads, lets me select my language, loads the next screen where I can select to load the Rescue Disc in graphic mode, then...no video. Same symptoms from my AVG Rescue Disc.

One thing that differs between the boot discs is the the UBCD4Win boot disc makes the hard drive light come on solid when the video disappears. Not so for the other boot discs. Running Memtest86 from the AVG Rescue CD works fine (and the RAM checks out as well).

I have removed the drive and attached it to a PC using and IDE adapter. I ran disc check, removed the system's regular boot drive, and it booted into Safe Mode just fine using the drive from the V2000.

I've looked at other posts all around this site and the Net at large but couldn't find anything with these specific symptoms. It's not the lid position switch, and I don't think it's the inverter or backlight since everything is fine until an application fully launches.


Any thoughts?

[Expertz]

You can try to press and hold down the F8 key BEFORE Windows starts to load. You can use "Enable VGA Mode" - this will cause Windows to load with basic 640x480 VGA drivers. From there, you can reconfigure or unsinatll and reinstall your display settings back to what they were originally set to before you had this problem.