How do I know If the video card is part of the motherboard?

cerichmond77

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I have a Gateway MA7 Laptop and the last time I tried to turn it on the screen was black and the fans were still going. I tried a few things like connecting it to a monitor and restarting it. I got nothing. I'm pretty sure that my graphics card went. I was just wondering if there is anyway without taking it apart to find out if the card is attached to the motherboard or not.
 
The Video Card on Laptop's is a chip on the Motherboard. The most common cases of black screen is having media in a DVD drive while booting up. If you have the settings in the BIOS to check for the DVD drive for a bootable img, and no bootable img DVD is in the drive, it will hang.

Also, it could be a connection to the HDD, which could be a little loose from multiple drops and what not. Or, if the laptop battery is not working, and you are using the laptop thru an A/C cord only causing it to become unplugged / shut down unexpectedly, then that could be the culprit as well.

I work in the IT field, and I have come across a lot of this :D
 
The Video Card on Laptop's is a chip on the Motherboard. The most common cases of black screen is having media in a DVD drive while booting up. If you have the settings in the BIOS to check for the DVD drive for a bootable img, and no bootable img DVD is in the drive, it will hang.

Also, it could be a connection to the HDD, which could be a little loose from multiple drops and what not. Or, if the laptop battery is not working, and you are using the laptop thru an A/C cord only causing it to become unplugged / shut down unexpectedly, then that could be the culprit as well.

I work in the IT field, and I have come across a lot of this :D

Well I think the first question that needs to be asked is: Is the screen completely blank do you see anything like a startup screen or flashing cursor. By the sounds of it there isnt which means it is not going to be anything mentioned in the previous post.
Next thing you could try is to connect the laptop to an external display to see if a anything appears on the external source. If so the screen on the laptop is gone or the connection has come loose. If not i would imagine the internal gpu has gone and will need replacing which will prob be quite hard. Is the laptop under warranty?
 
Well I think the first question that needs to be asked is: Is the screen completely blank do you see anything like a startup screen or flashing cursor. By the sounds of it there isnt which means it is not going to be anything mentioned in the previous post.
Next thing you could try is to connect the laptop to an external display to see if a anything appears on the external source. If so the screen on the laptop is gone or the connection has come loose. If not i would imagine the internal gpu has gone and will need replacing which will prob be quite hard. Is the laptop under warranty?

My answers were for a completely black screen (nothing showing up at all).

Second, he did try plugging the laptop into an external monitor, as he posted that in the OP. Also, if the external screen did not come up, that doesn't mean the GPU is affected.. It just means that the settings need to be configured to display on the video port interface before it will produce an image. None of the laptops I have will work right away when a monitor is connected to the laptop.
 
My answers were for a completely black screen (nothing showing up at all).

Second, he did try plugging the laptop into an external monitor, as he posted that in the OP. Also, if the external screen did not come up, that doesn't mean the GPU is affected.. It just means that the settings need to be configured to display on the video port interface before it will produce an image. None of the laptops I have will work right away when a monitor is connected to the laptop.


If a dvd is in the drive there is still a sign of startup on the screen, it will post and at the very least there will be at least a flashing cursor regardless of if there is a bootable disc in the drive, even if it hangs on boot there would still be something on the display. And again if the hard drive is disconnected the computer would still post hence meaning you answers were not for a completely black screen. There would also be beeb codes to indicate various errors
And i didnt say it was def the GPU i said it might be.
I missed the bit in the op about the attempts on an external display.
 
If a dvd is in the drive there is still a sign of startup on the screen, it will post and at the very least there will be at least a flashing cursor regardless of if there is a bootable disc in the drive, even if it hangs on boot there would still be something on the display. And again if the hard drive is disconnected the computer would still post hence meaning you answers were not for a completely black screen. There would also be beeb codes to indicate various errors
And i didnt say it was def the GPU i said it might be.
I missed the bit in the op about the attempts on an external display.

Apparently you don't deal with a lot of laptops.. I work with them everyday. If a DVD is in the drive during boot up, it may hang the system up until the DVD drive is ejected, then normal boot-up will happen. It is all dependent on how the system is setup.

And, if the HDD is slightly disconnected, it can still work, but there may be issues, for ex: no bootup display (blank black screen), file corruption, and various errors.

And, there are not always beep codes to go a long with various hardware because of electrical glitches/anything. It does happen, lol. You can take RAM out of some computers and the computer will not beep. Also, the OP did not mention anything about a beep code. So why assume that there was one? Maybe the OP didn't catch on to the beeping if it were to have beeped.
 
You are aware that the system does not hang nor does fail to boot up.
It boots by, the sounds of it, normally but without any display
I just want to be sure we are talking about the same thing
When you say blank black screen do you mean a turned off screen, a screen that clearly has no power going to it, not even a back light, is that what you are talking about?

BTW i have no idea why i brought up beep codes.

LOL didnt realize i have two accounts, do i speak to admin to get one cancelled?
 
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