Laptop issues

[Devhux]

Well, it looks like my brother's AOpen 1557GLS barebones laptop is slowly dying (and this is only after 1.5 years of service.

Originally, the CD-ROM drive started being flaky. It would work fine one minute, then the next, it would disappear from "My Computer." Removing / reinstalling the drive made no difference.

Now, whenever the machine boots up from suspend or from a powered-off state, the display is pink for about 30 seconds -- then fades into the proper colors. The backlighting is also very uneven (there's a darker patch near the bottom middle of the LCD).

Luckily the machine was purchased with a VISA card that doubles the warranty, so VISA will cover it -- but I don't even know who to contact to get this thing repaired (let alone how long it will take).

Here's a pic of what the LCD does:

http://members.shaw.ca/gurux/pink_lcd.jpg

[_=DeltaForce=_]

Call VISA and see how they cover the warranty... You can may be send it to Aopen for out of warranty repair and I guess VISA will cover it.. Or they might ask you to send it somewhere and refund the money you paid to buy another laptop...

[Devhux]

Now to figure out how to get a hold of Aopen (their site is not the best to glean such info).

[Jeffbx]

I had the same LCD issue with a Thinkpad (started pink but then displayed normal colors when it 'warmed up'). You probably need a new backlight for it. If you can't get it covered under warranty, you should be able to find parts to do it yourself pretty easily.

[spigidygak]

definitely looks like a backlight issue, have a few friends with similar issues.

http://usa.aopen.com/tech/

[Devhux]

Well I'm going to the place I bought it for them to do a full diagnostic run on it (complete with burn-in testing). That way I can rule out any future problems developing before I send the barebones unit to AOpen (looking at the site linked above, barebones laptops like this should be sent back without the CPU/memory/HDD).

[Grimm]

I'm betting it will die on benchmark testing.

My guess is that the problem is power related. The CD, a very power hungry component, dying off is a big indicator.