Hi -
Found you all from Google and thought maybe I could find some assistance here.
My young son spilled juice all over my Dell notebook (running Windows XP). The machine boots up fine but the display is dark. It is not completely black, however. If I look closely, I can see Windows loading, and the desktop, start menu, etc. It is just as if there is a VERY dark contrast on the monitor.

Is there a cheap (non-Dell $500) fix for this? Maybe a cleaning of the video card? Or a setting in the startup somewhere? I hope not all is lost with this, I would think not because I am still getting an image (thank God the computer is even loading up! A lucky spill, I guess!) I am somewhat computer literate so you can go a bit technical with me, not too far though. I appreciate any responses I may get, thank you in advance.

Have a good day!

At this point I won't be technical at all. How long ago did this happen.

I would give it some time to sort itself. Maybe even spend a few hours in the sun

Is it still under warranty? Where did you get the $500 figure?

Canned air is also a possibility or a VERY VERY LOW setting on a hair dryer at a good distance.

#19 in this diagram is your graphics card:



The manuals etc. are here:

http://support.dell.com/support/trou...en&s=dhs&cs=19

I would really suggest waiting a day & seeing if anything improves.

If this has happened more than a day ago then a more hands on method would appear neccessary.

Let us know.

Thank you for your quick response.
This just happened a couple days ago. I called Dell (purchased laptop in November of 03) and they said it would be a $300-$500 charge to fix it, plus the cost of shipping to send to them.

Maybe I will try canned air, I tried to clean all of the juice out, and it seemed dry ..but maybe not on the inside. I am just glad the hard drive itself still works.

Came home from work today and plugged the laptop up to my desktop monitor.
Everything worked perfectly.

So that becomes an issue now of the LCD screen? Maybe need to clean the cable? have you ever encountered a bad LCD laptop screen before?

(I notice now that there is a hardware thread on here... if you would like to move my post to there, I would gladly follow.)

Part #2 in the above diagram is the screen connector. As seen here in more detail:

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...ay.htm#1105347

If you are comfortable opening it up try to check/clean this connector.

Dry juice everywhere..
I enlisted to help of my father, who is a television repair technician, to help me clean everything out.
Even after that, the LCD screen did not work. I am assuming I shorted something out in the cables.. or the card..
I use the laptop as my home computer, so I am just going to buy a monitor from the local computer store.

Thank you for all your help, those links helped me greatly when trying to troubleshoot this *sticky* mess!