Dell C810 dark screen

[Patrick]

I have a dell c810 laptop that when running on batteries is fine.
When i plug the power cord in, about 1/3 of the screen turns dark after about 10-15 min. I unplug it and the screen returns to normal. I have used a different power cord (supply) also. I was wondering if it could be the power board assembly that was bad?
:)

[invisionable]

I have one of these babies too (but only for a week so far). Hate to check the obvious, but have you gone into Control Panel - Power Management and/or the Dell-supplied QuickSet program? It might be that you are inadvertently configured to be in 'Maximum Battery' mode even when your AC plug is in; I think that program shuts down the brightness of the screen after a while.

[invisionable]

Sorry - scratch that thought. This laptop is a D810 not a C810 so the software config could be different. Must be the end of the work day or something :-)

[jza734]

Patrick,

C810's and the entire c8xxx series have issues w/video cards, since they do a little bit of the power duty, along with the power board itself. However, first things first; does it exhibit the same behavouir on the ext. monitor? The next step if it does NOT would be to swap the video card.

[Patrick]

the external monitor does not fade out but the lap top still does.
any advise on where to buy a video card for this laptop ?
thanks
patrick

[jza734]

Well, find out the dell part #, (c8xx video cards aren't always interchangable, www.bay-wolf.com has info on this, it depends on different screens and inverters)

Post the part # and i can give you a list of vendors who have it.
Off the top of my head, impactcomputers.com, but there are a lot of dell parters (people who junk out broken laptops) on ebay.

dell part #'s are 5 digits, it should be like this;

d p/n then usually the next 5 digits.

Will look for your reply.

[Patrick]

DP/N TW-01G544-69700-17P-1326
i found it for around $150 to $200.
hope you can do better

thanks
patrick

[jza734]

Geez,
I used to stock them here for a lot less than that. Don't have any in stock. I checked brokerbin.com, impactcomputers.com has them for $129.99. Affordablecomputers.com has a comparable part, a 32mb geforce 4 go card for the c840 for $79.99. Either would work. Both have a generous return policy, all that means is you got more than 1 day to test it out. 7 -day return no questions asked, 30-day warranty on both. That's all i can find dude.

[Patrick]

:) Hey replaced the same video card in laptop and its been on for about 8 hrs now and no dark screen :rolleyes: .
reseating the card seems to have fixed the problem for now :thumbs2:
thanks for all your help
patrick

[jza734]

No sweat man - enjoy