Laptop Screen goes white after random amount of time until I restart?

[infringer]

Hey BC Members,

I got an acer 5100 and I've never seen this problem before but upon analysis the screen goes white after using for 10 - 15 minutes...

I have tried to reflow the BGA graphics card (ATI) and had no luck at all any ideas what could cause this I have also seen this on another laptop I am curious if anyone else has had this issue and figured out how to fix it.

So far I have only tried to reflow the chip... The odd thing about this is I can restart the PC and it will work fine again for random amounts of time at the most I figure it worked about an hour topps.

This thing is really beginning to tickle my brain in trying to diagnose the problem there is no warning no sound or anything of the sort it just loses picture and goes completely white the backlight is still on and such the computer stays running no BSOD's nothing indicating any kind of error at all.

Any help is greatly appreciated don't matter what model you have really if you fixed this on another laptop chances are your fix may be somewhat related to my own so share your trials with us.

[infringer]

Re: Laptop Screen goes white after random amount of time until I restart?

I would like to add some other symptoms this laptop exhibits:

When I try to install software of any size like microsoft office or whatever to this unit it seems to go white and fails within a few minutes of doing so.

It will not boot windows installation from a USB drive. After booting finding that there is a USB drive at boot when I set my boot priority to boot from USB drive the screen remains black and hangs there and the flash drive just keeps flashing over and over.

Another thing to try that I don't think I tried yet is a new processor. Read somewhere about a fella having a similar problem and it was related to a processor fault of some sort. And another thing is the cable on the back of the LCD that connects to the top of the panel this could be loose or crooked. And yet another thing to try is finding the video ram which I don't believe there is any as it is shared memory for this ATI video card and try to reflow it... Finally someone mentioned something about it possibly being some power control chips on a different model by Texas Instruments dunno that it'd be the same in my case but maybe similar.

Before I rip this thing apart again for the 10th time I really want to gather some information so if you have any to share please do share it.

[momaka]

Re: Laptop Screen goes white after random amount of time until I restart?

Before you tear it appart, let's try the simple stuff first...
Does your laptop have a VGA port? If so, when the screen goes white, connect an external monitor to the VGA port and see if you get a picture.
- If you do, it's a screen issue.
- If you don't, then it might be graphics-card related.

[Joun]

Re: Laptop Screen goes white after random amount of time until I restart?

In a similar situation I had (can't remember laptop's model) it was what you thought it would be: Graphics chip.
I reflow it and nothing changed..Only until I desolder it, reballed it and solder it back,it came back to life..
I really don't think it's a loose cable,or a bad CPU(they are tougher than you think) or anythink else,just a BGA chip that needs reballing..

[infringer]

Re: Laptop Screen goes white after random amount of time until I restart?

Yes this is quite the task without the proper equipment. Are you aware of any cheap easy methods to reballing?

Thanks in advance

-infringer-