Dell Inspiron 600m-desperate college student! please help!!

[kgorie]

Hi,
I'm completely computer incompetent, but here's whats going on. A few nights ago, I was working on my computer, a Dell Inspiron 600m that I bought in May 2005, and it started shaking, and then went black. I turned it on again, and it was fine for a few minutes, then started shaking and went black. Now when I turn it on, the DELL sign comes up, and then it goes black. Its not the backlight, because you can see the DELL before it goes dark. If you hold a light up to the screen after its black you can see some stuff going on, but its almost impossible. My friend is a computer genius and thought it was the inverter board, so I bought a new one and we replaced it, but nothing changed. Tonight I tried to turn it on and it made a loud, long beep sound.
Has anyone had this problem??? I'm a college student getting ready for midterms and major papers, and this is just not going to be ok...
Thanks in advance!

[davy]

Prior to this fault, what was the picture like.... was the white in the picture tinted or dis coloured?

What do you mean by shaking, was the entire picture shaking or would you happen to mean blinking.

The reason of asking is although you changed the inverter you didn't mention changing the back lights the CCFL tubes (Cold Cathode Florescent Tubes), these are a bit like the ones you use for overhead lighting... but they don't have or use the heater electrodes at the ends.... you simply apply a high voltage of around 1.2Kv at the ends to cause ionization....

... but they reveal the same clue when the tubes are near the end of its life, they light they emit becomes tinted, usually pinkish instead of white, and they start to flicker.

Now for the long bleep.
It sounds either like something has been disturbed or that the inverter isn't the correct type, so re-inserting the original inverter would prove this point.

It's quite easy to disturb any cards like the RAM or Graphic card, leads, links or switches that sets the clocking speeds... so special attention needs to be paid here by pulling them out and carefully re-inserting.

I think a clue could be had from

If you hold a light up to the screen after its black you can see some stuff going on, but its almost impossible.

If the picture was steady be it almost feint this would certainly suggest the back lights or the inverter as the graphic card would continue to work and produce a 'non lit picture'.

But there could well be other causes, so I would go back to square one and do a retrace.

Here's a useful link Repair4Laptop: Laptop & Notebook Repairing, Upgrading and Modding Guides: by Manufacturers

Davy