G73jh ATI - No display on startup but works after 15 minutes

[AllÃ_]

Hello !


I have the G73 jh with an ATI card for more than fours years now, and about a month ago I started having problem with the screen/GPU.
I flashed the bios and vbios like two/three years ago after the common issues appeared, but it fixed it and doesn't seem to be related. Plus, it seems to have appeared out of the blue, ie not after updating a driver or something like that.

The problem I currently have is the following :
When I boot the computer, sometimes the display does not power on (it's dead black, not screen-on black) so no Asus logo. Sometimes, it kind of works and flickers in and on to finally go black.
The rest of the computer works fine, and I can boot and then login to windows or linux (I have a multiboot).

With linux (Linux Mint 14 kde), after something like 15 minutes, the screen begins to flicker and then works like a charm five minutes laters. It sometimes flickers again later, but this is really quick and really rare. Basically, long boot but usable.

With Windows 7, it's much worse. I don't have the same pattern of black then works as on linux. It's usually constant flickering. Sometimes it seems to work for a few minutes but then bam, black screen and flickering which makes it impossible to use. It seems that playing a video game make it worse.
I've tried to change the video driver to the latest one about a month ago, but same problem.
I've rebooted on Windows today for the first time in about a month, and I haven't had the problem yet, except during startup (the screen started working when the windows login screen appeared). I haven't tried to play a game yet.


It doesn't seem to be a software problem since it appears before POST, and plagues both WIndows and Linux.
When it's working, the screen works like a charm. I had thought of an unplugged cable, but it seems inconsistent with the issue.
Considering all of that I'm afraid it's a GPU issue. A dying GPU could somewhat explain my problems.


Anyone got an idea or an advice on what to do?

Thanks in advance.

[billyray520]

It could also be an intermittent lvds screen cable. It's not a terribly hard thing to access, if you disassemble the screen. That would be easier to fix than a gpu issue. I gravitate toward easy things first. 😉 You can try your video output on the vga or hdmi port to verify your gpu.

[AllÃ_]

Thanks for the reply, I'll check the cable.

I've tried to use another screen using VGA, and it worked perfectly.
However, I tried to play a bit yesterday and I had the following behaviour :
Started the game, after a few minutes the screen goes dead.
Alt-tabbed out the game, after a few minutes the screen is working.
Rinse and repeat.
That seems a strange behaviour for a loose cable.

[billyray520]

Ok, that's good info. At least you know the GPU is ok. Since you have the G73jh, it could also be a screen issue. That's the reason I had to replace my screen a couple of yrs. ago. But that's a (relatively) easy fix too. My screen would PSOD every so often, and finally it became permanent. I would check for a loose connection first, and if that didn't fix it, I would do the screen next.