I have an Inspiron 1300 (I know it's a Dell, but honestly I've never had problems with it since I bought it three years ago). However, it started malfunctioning about three days ago. The problem seems to occur when I run Windows XP. Everything is as usual, until a black screen comes up with a white cursor, which I can move around, but I can't get past that stage. I've tried to restart the system in safe mode (by pressing down F8 and choosing the default safe mode), but it doesn't seem to make a difference as I still get the black screen with the cursor (and Safe Mode appearing in all four corners of the screen). Is the problem with the video card or laptop monitor setting(s)? Or altogether somewhere else? Cheers! Hope to hear from some of you soon.
I don't know exactly but my guess would be either the video card is dead or the screen it's self is dead. Maybe it's a virus, hope someone with better knowledge will help you out with it.
personally, i would start with a clean reinstall of XP & see when / if the problem reoccurs[ot]it probably won't reoccur, because, XP is the best OS on the planet, which is why i use Linux[/ot]BTW: sorry for being sarcastic
Personally I would have said it's not the video card... If you can move the mouse around, then the video card is refreshing the screen. If you do control + alt + delete, does it bring up the task manager? If you can, start a new task called explorer. This will load the desktop. If not, you could try a repair installing using an XP disc, this is more likely to preserve data.
Well, repair may be an option. Don't count that out... it is just a process that would be far outside of the help you could get from this site. We could give you suggestions, but it can be difficult work for an advanced user. You see... there are a lot of parts up by the buttons you described. It could be just a replace of the keypad... but I believe that the LCD may also plug into the mainboard in that area. I would contact the manufacturer and talk to them about possible repair.
