Fixing a Dead Display Problem
A little back story is required for this and this solution probably won't help most people but here it goes:
At work we have been a customer of MPC computers for going on 5 years now. Recently MPC acquired the business side of Gateway and they became MPC/Gateway. Fast-forward to yesterday - the company is out of business. What this means for us is that all our warranties are now void and there's no one to service the systems for us. The bad side is that my machines are about 99% proprietary all-in-one systems and don't use all standard parts. I have 5 machines with dead inverters for the LCD panels and there's nothing I can do to fix that. I cannot find inverters to save my life that match what I need.
So one of these systems is a specialized access station that runs ZoomText which is software that magnifies the screen and makes it easier for those with vision problems to use the computer. This is one of only 5 machines of this type - 19-inch All-in-one - so I don't have swapping options or anything. The nice thing is that they all do have an external monitor hook-up but it has to be configured.
So I hooked up a secondary monitor to the all-in-one and had to change display settings so that it would display. This is where the problem came in - the screen on the all-in-one is dead, sort of. You can just barely see the screen so if you work it just right you can kind of see the screen. This one was really dark though and it was getting close to impossible and I was about to give up.
That's when I remembered that I had my LCD flashlight with me and I used that to light up small parts of the screen so I could see. Once I got the dual monitors setup I was about to move the screen over and actually get the settings the way I wanted.
The important thing I figured out is that you can't just use Windows display settings - I had to go into the display adapters settings and use those to make the primary display the monitor and not the "notebook" screen of the all-in-one.
It looks a little awkward because there is a monitor in front of the all-in-one, but it works and isn't that what matters?
At work we have been a customer of MPC computers for going on 5 years now. Recently MPC acquired the business side of Gateway and they became MPC/Gateway. Fast-forward to yesterday - the company is out of business. What this means for us is that all our warranties are now void and there's no one to service the systems for us. The bad side is that my machines are about 99% proprietary all-in-one systems and don't use all standard parts. I have 5 machines with dead inverters for the LCD panels and there's nothing I can do to fix that. I cannot find inverters to save my life that match what I need.
So one of these systems is a specialized access station that runs ZoomText which is software that magnifies the screen and makes it easier for those with vision problems to use the computer. This is one of only 5 machines of this type - 19-inch All-in-one - so I don't have swapping options or anything. The nice thing is that they all do have an external monitor hook-up but it has to be configured.
So I hooked up a secondary monitor to the all-in-one and had to change display settings so that it would display. This is where the problem came in - the screen on the all-in-one is dead, sort of. You can just barely see the screen so if you work it just right you can kind of see the screen. This one was really dark though and it was getting close to impossible and I was about to give up.
That's when I remembered that I had my LCD flashlight with me and I used that to light up small parts of the screen so I could see. Once I got the dual monitors setup I was about to move the screen over and actually get the settings the way I wanted.
The important thing I figured out is that you can't just use Windows display settings - I had to go into the display adapters settings and use those to make the primary display the monitor and not the "notebook" screen of the all-in-one.
It looks a little awkward because there is a monitor in front of the all-in-one, but it works and isn't that what matters?
Labels: all-in-one, gateway, hardware repair, mpc
posted by Angela at
9:31 PM
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