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I have an old hp laptop which has a broken display, after the display was broken, the laptop was store for many years never to be used again, after some years, I found it and connected it to an external display, with it, it worked fine but after some months, the hard drive got corrupt with some things I was doing and it was stored again. Recently, I bought a new ssd to replace the old hdd and opened it up to connect the new ssd, when I tried turning on the laptop to try and install windows, I couldn't get it to connect to the external monitor, the monitor could tell that it was receiving an hdmi signal (probably due to the 5v delivered though the cable) but when selecting it, It was reading no signal. It is not the fault of the cable. On the video
about the laptop transformation to an all in one pc, diy perks mentioned that none could access the bios as only the internal screen was the one that could connect to the bios but he said that because of a key on the keyboard (on mine it is f4) the computer would slide through it's ports and connect to the external monitor. I connected the laptop and pressed my f4 key but nothing happend, I pressed it a few more times and even tried to press it with fn but nothing was happening. Does anybody have a potential solution, by the way, the broken internal screen is completely disconnected from the motherboard along with the screen hinges.
Posted : 06/01/2024 1:52 pm
smarthomecastle reacted
I spent a lot of years fixing busted PCs and laptops were always the most troublesome, particularly as the chipsets are customised to the specific board. It may just be that if the laptop can't detect the internal driver board it gets stuck in POST but every one is likely to be different because you know--- they want you to buy another one!
If you have a spare machine, you could try installing a gnu/Linux like MX-Linux and booting from that. Linux might be able to access the external monitor - unlikely but worth a shot.
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, I might be wrong and it's a very *expensive* way to learn!
Posted : 08/01/2024 1:43 pm
smarthomecastle reacted
Topic starter
@marcdraco I removed the internal drive and put in a ubuntu disc so that if boots from there, didn't work, I also put in a hard drive with installed version of windows 10, which still didn't work.
Posted : 08/01/2024 1:49 pm
That sounds like it's departed for silicone heaven I'm afraid. 🙁
If it's any consolation, you can get fairly cheap laptops on eBay now with surprisingly good specifications, esp. old professionally owned ones by Dell, HP and Lenovo are often excellent buys if you don't mind a few bumps and scratches.
Right now I'm on an old Lenovo Thinkpad X240 which has given me amazing service even though it's only a 5th generation i5. The keyboard is getting a little tired now but it's seen a lot of action over the years. Ironically, I have several machines with far better specifications but this old thing just sits nicely on my lap and doesn't need a small nuclear power station to run it.
If you're not gaming (etc.) you can get away with machines dating back to the mid naughties and maybe earlier. Not that I'm suggesting a RPi - with the exception of the latest generation they are totally unsuitable for all but the most relaxed of computing tasks.
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, I might be wrong and it's a very *expensive* way to learn!
Posted : 10/01/2024 7:21 pm
@anastasis08 . Maybe, you should try installing both windows uefi and legacy on the ssd separately and connecting the ssd to the laptop. Some laptops, have uefi features available but still run on legacy windows so it might be possible that legacy option is only enabled (non CSM) which doesnt allow users to boot uefi systems or vice versa
Posted : 12/02/2024 4:02 pm
marcdraco reacted
Good shout. Gosh I hate Windows.
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, I might be wrong and it's a very *expensive* way to learn!
Posted : 13/02/2024 8:11 pm
Topic starter
@marcdraco @Haadi71 Thank you all for your support, I borrowed a VGA cable from my school and it was able to fully project everything including bios and boot manager. I upgraded the ram from 2gb to 4gb as I had a spare ram stick from an upgrade I did to my main computer. Just one more question, this is the HP 14-r208nv and I realised it doesn't have a fan inside, I mean it does have a metal thing that goes where the fan is supposed to be but there is not fan, I replaced the thermal paste but, is it normal for a laptop to not have a fan? If it is normal, I may even drop the rate at which the cpu is working from 100% to something lower so that is doesn't get too hot
This post was modified 1 year ago by Anastasis08
Posted : 24/02/2024 6:36 am
marcdraco reacted
Well done, sorry I didn't see you post this.
It's highly unusual for any modern computer to lack a fan. Possible, most certainly, but unlikely and almost certainly impossible on an HP (or any Intel/AMD x86-based Core design. (Many ARM/RISC chips are quite capable of that but even they tend to use coolers at higher speeds/voltages).
It's common for a single (centripetal) fan to cool the whole machine using a heat-pipe but I can't imagine that a machine of that age would be fanless - now I could be wrong...
I don't suppose you have a decent photograph of the machine's guts perchance? We can get a better idea what's going on.
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, I might be wrong and it's a very *expensive* way to learn!
Posted : 27/02/2024 12:10 pm