laptop screen broken

i'm in the US right now but the boy tells me the laptop screen is broken- the computer turns on and all the lights look good, except the screen is black.

it's a dell inspiron i bought in the US in Dec 2005.

2 questions:
1- is it worth it getting screen replaced/fixed?  how much could this possibly be?  range?

2- i'm in the US- dell is having an employee discount sale.  i can get a slightly better computer than the one we have for $550- $600.  should i get this? 

thanks
meg

OMG - the same thing happened to me with my Dell Inspiron except the computer wouldn't even turn on. Which I also bought in 2005. Hmmm.

I paid $100 to have it looked at, and was finally able to hook the laptop up to a monitor and use it because the screen was shot. There was no way to fix the screen. I don't know all the technical details (but will ask my husband, if you're interested).

Anyway, I ended up getting a new laptop. I sold the old one on Craigslist for $100 for parts and had a million requests for it - maybe you can do the same and get more money?

Good luck.

I recently replaced the screen on my e1705 Dell notebook. I did the work myself but the replacement screen cost me about $280 + shipping because I bought it on eBay in the U.S. and had my dad ship it to me. If I'd purchased it in the UK, it would have come out roughly £400. That's just for the screen -- add another $/£100 for labor.

The price will depend on your screen size and resolution, but with the age of your machine, you're gonna come out at best about $300 ahead if you find a good deal on a replacement panel.

Just get a new machine.

okay... i'm thinking i'll just get a new machine then.  i'll spend an extra $200 or so but save myself the aggravation and hassle and downtime.  laptops have certainly gone down in price since dec 05.

thankfully the machine still works and so i'll hook it up to my work computer one sat and burn all my stuff off (everything 6 mths and older is already backed up)

we really only use the home computer for browsing, dvd watching, light excel/word applications. 

question- is there a way to delete everything personal from the old computer (once i get all pictures, etc off) before i sell it on craigslist/ebay?

How..umm..paranoid are you about your data getting out?


The down 'n dirty method is to delete everything you want gone, then defrag. This should do a pretty decent job.

If you want it really really gone, then you can find a program that will overwrite the empty space on the drive with 0s. Then the data's completely gone.

If you have any kind of a backup utility running in the background (like Norton Ghost,) make sure you delete all the recovery files it has saved.

ETA: I'm not super-certain, but I believe the delete-defrag metod works best if you haven't run defrag on your drive in a long time.

Might not be the screen either, but the logic board.

A know this was a big problem for Ibooks. Not that it's a cheaper solution, but some people would go to the trouble to replace the screen, and still find that it doesn't work.

This happened to me a few years ago on my crappy WinBook (ugh) and I sent it in and the issue was covered under the basic warranty.  It wasn't the screen, but the light behind it, or something odd like that.  I could faintly see outlines of things in the black...  Worth checking if you don't need something new and high performance yet.

This happened to me a few years ago on my crappy WinBook (ugh) and I sent it in and the issue was covered under the basic warranty.  It wasn't the screen, but the light behind it, or something odd like that.  I could faintly see outlines of things in the black...  Worth checking if you don't need something new and high performance yet.

Replacing the backlight is replacing the screen. They are not gonna take the panel apart to fix that.

That's too bad!!!  I guess I got lucky, they did for me.

The down 'n dirty method is to delete everything you want gone, then defrag. This should do a pretty decent job.

That's not a reliable method.  You could leave a lot of blocks behind untouched which still contain your data.  A disk wiping utility which will totally erase all unused blocks is by far the best option.

Hiya,

Replacement screens are pretty much readily available here in the UK and there are quite a few Dell refurb specialists around who can do the job for you for a decent outlay. It does depend on the resolution of the screen as to the price of the panel, often those in this situation will look for a higher resolution panel and get that installed.
I do know of a Dell repairer specialist in NW London in the White City area who I've used previously and can recommend - let me know.

The other option is to simply plug in an external monitor as use the laptop as a 'base' unit, provided the motherboard and monitor output aren't kaput.

Defrag your hard drive will NOT remove any data whatsoever. Defragmentation simply 'tidies up' blocks of data on the hard drive to be logically arranged. Although other's have started on the right lines, there are ways to totally remove data from Hard drives so that the contents are not recoverable. They take quite some time too! I sold off my old workhorse Dell and ran a disk wiping utility which took around 17 hours or so for a 60GB hard disk! as they write and re-write data in 0 and then 1 multiple times.

Nowadays as laptops are relatively much more affordable, maybe a new one in your case is what you'd like to do - just make sure you get one with as much specification for the outlay you want to part with!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Defrag your hard drive will NOT remove any data whatsoever. Defragmentation simply 'tidies up' blocks of data on the hard drive to be logically arranged.

Most defrag utilities won't bother moving data elsewhere from blocks currently marked as free and which they're going to use though, so some of your old data might be deleted in the process.  The key words are some and might, of course.   

thanks everyone- dennis- can you pls post or pm me the dell refurb person in NW london- that's no too too far away. 

finally got around to hooking old kaput laptop up to external moniter- how do I run a "disk wiping utility"?

meghann

yeah!!!  my company was clearing out their computer room- full of large bulky mointers, keyboards, etc.... now I have a mointer.  not the prettiest but it works until we get a new laptop!