By David Ponce
[ The following concerns a paid campaign currently running on the site. ]
Regular readers will be familiar with our involvement with Toshiba’s Laptop Experts program. I’ve personally been tackling some questions over the last few months, and as much as I’d like to think I’m doing a flawless job getting readers their perfect answers, the truth is there are probably quicker, easier ways to accomplish the same things. And I’m convinced you guys can help. To make it more interesting, I’m throwing in some prizes. It’s not Powerball lottery material but I’ve got about $50’s worth of stuff to give away: iTunes gift cards, thumb drives, etc. I’ll paste three questions below (along with a link to my own answer), and you guys can take a crack at them. Answer either in the comments to this article, or better yet, on the Laptop Experts site itself.
I’ll be dictatorial and pick what I consider the “best” effort at a better answer and you guys can then feel free to call me names and such.
I have a toshiba satellite l355-s7812, and I want to recoard live TV. What cables or programs do I need? Thanks [ My answer here. ]
I bought a sony vaio laptop. it works fine, but the dvd does not work. Someone took a look at it, and the bios is password locked. I bought it off someone second hand. Can anyone help? [ My answer here. ]
My HP Pavillion tx1127cl’s screen remains blank after it comes out of standby, and have to force shutdown and restart. [ My answer here ]
If you guys are curious about other questions being asked, follow the link below.
[ Laptop Experts ]
3. the answer to this question isn't so easy – just to update video drivers. there's another causes of this problem.
3.1 first of all we should check – is the screen perfectly blank, ot it's just backlit did not turned on. if there's no backlite and desktop appears on the screen and slightly visible – that may be BIOS problem. So you should try to update BIOS firmware, or if that doesnt work – try to rewrite it with older version of firmware.
3.2 if the screen perfectly blank – there may be problems with bios APM or ACPI settings ( S1/S2/S3 differs on providing with power internal hardware – read about it here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms79827… ) if there any and also – with some additional h/w driver installed in OS. the solution is to change Power Managment settings in bios ( or just reset them to default ), check power managment settings in windows ( what mode has been used – hybernate or suspend?), check in device managment – does PC ACPI mode supported, and try to disable additional hardware drivers installed in system – i.e. bluetooth dongle, tvtuners etc…
may be this issues could be usefull:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242495/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=923232
this patch fixes some problems too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx…
to disable additional hardware use win+r->devmgmt.msc, right click on device, properties, disable
to disable additional software, drivers and services use win+r->msconfig (sorry, my interface isnt in english) in common menu choose “diagnostic startup” or something like this (2nd from the top)
3.3 concerning video driver problem – yep, may be it must be updated, but sometimes hardware better works with older version of drivers than with updated one. This can solve the problem too.
3.4 at last – it could be system fault – to solve – use win+r-> sfc.exe /scannow ( this tool will check windows system files, and if any of the are corrupted – will restore them form windows installation (or recovery) disk )
and afterall may be a good reason to check system event viewer, is there any errors or warnings.
that's it for question 3 🙂
3. the answer to this question isn't so easy – just to update video drivers. there's another causes of this problem.
3.1 first of all we should check – is the screen perfectly blank, ot it's just backlit did not turned on. if there's no backlite and desktop appears on the screen and slightly visible – that may be BIOS problem. So you should try to update BIOS firmware, or if that doesnt work – try to rewrite it with older version of firmware.
3.2 if the screen perfectly blank – there may be problems with bios APM or ACPI settings ( S1/S2/S3 differs on providing with power internal hardware – read about it here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms79827… ) if there any and also – with some additional h/w driver installed in OS. the solution is to change Power Managment settings in bios ( or just reset them to default ), check power managment settings in windows ( what mode has been used – hybernate or suspend?), check in device managment – does PC ACPI mode supported, and try to disable additional hardware drivers installed in system – i.e. bluetooth dongle, tvtuners etc…
may be this issues could be usefull:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242495/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=923232
this patch fixes some problems too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx…
to disable additional hardware use win+r->devmgmt.msc, right click on device, properties, disable
to disable additional software, drivers and services use win+r->msconfig (sorry, my interface isnt in english) in common menu choose “diagnostic startup” or something like this (2nd from the top)
3.3 concerning video driver problem – yep, may be it must be updated, but sometimes hardware better works with older version of drivers than with updated one. This can solve the problem too.
3.4 at last – it could be system fault – to solve – use win+r-> sfc.exe /scannow ( this tool will check windows system files, and if any of the are corrupted – will restore them form windows installation (or recovery) disk )
and afterall may be a good reason to check system event viewer, is there any errors or warnings.
that's it for question 3 🙂
3. the answer to this question isn't so easy – just to update video drivers. there's another causes of this problem.
3.1 first of all we should check – is the screen perfectly blank, ot it's just backlit did not turned on. if there's no backlite and desktop appears on the screen and slightly visible – that may be BIOS problem. So you should try to update BIOS firmware, or if that doesnt work – try to rewrite it with older version of firmware.
3.2 if the screen perfectly blank – there may be problems with bios APM or ACPI settings ( S1/S2/S3 differs on providing with power internal hardware – read about it here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms79827… ) if there any and also – with some additional h/w driver installed in OS. the solution is to change Power Managment settings in bios ( or just reset them to default ), check power managment settings in windows ( what mode has been used – hybernate or suspend?), check in device managment – does PC ACPI mode supported, and try to disable additional hardware drivers installed in system – i.e. bluetooth dongle, tvtuners etc…
may be this issues could be usefull:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242495/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477/en/
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=923232
this patch fixes some problems too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx…
to disable additional hardware use win+r->devmgmt.msc, right click on device, properties, disable
to disable additional software, drivers and services use win+r->msconfig (sorry, my interface isnt in english) in common menu choose “diagnostic startup” or something like this (2nd from the top)
3.3 concerning video driver problem – yep, may be it must be updated, but sometimes hardware better works with older version of drivers than with updated one. This can solve the problem too.
3.4 at last – it could be system fault – to solve – use win+r-> sfc.exe /scannow ( this tool will check windows system files, and if any of the are corrupted – will restore them form windows installation (or recovery) disk )
and afterall may be a good reason to check system event viewer, is there any errors or warnings.
that's it for question 3 🙂