Letting your little light shine ............................................................
Let the machine fully boot. If you ordinarily have to enter a password to load
Windows, wait until the drive stops spinning — you should be at the point
where the password is expected — and type it in and press Enter; if you don’t
have to type in a password but have to press Enter to continue, do so.I’m assuming you do not see the friendly Windows home screen. But: Did you
see any semblance of a picture, as an image that appeared and then faded
away? That is often indication of a problem with the LCD or its associated
circuitry and not the display adapter.Try shining a strong light on the screen. Can you make out your Windows
desktop or an application? This is another indication that the problem may
be with the LCD circuitry or with the fluorescent backlight that illuminates
the screen.Watching the boob tube ....................................................................
If you still do not have an idea of the cause of the problem, attach a television
set or a computer monitor to your laptop. Consult the instruction manual for
your computer to determine any key combinations or special settings you
must use to divert the signal.Various laptops have differing commands. On a current Toshiba machine, for
example, the key combination is Fn/F5 to toggle external video on or off; on
an older Gateway machine the command is Fn/F3. Other machines will auto-
matically recognize the presence of certain types of external displays.If you can see an image on an external monitor, this is an indication that your
video display adapter is probably functioning properly. Bear in mind that a
display on a television set is going to be at a lower resolution and likely pre-
sent a faded or limited color set.Working from the keyboard of your laptop and using the external display,
check to see if any settings have been made to disable the laptop and see if
the driver is functioning properly. Here are the steps under Windows XP. The
process is similar under other recent versions of Windows including 98, 98SE,
and ME.- Click Start➪Control Panel➪System icon➪Hardware tab➪
Device Manager.
192 Part III: Laying Hands on the Major Parts