So took in a laptop (HP DV2500, about 3 - 3.5 years old) from a friend of a friend, told screen was flickering intermittently, then that day had just went off, however still starting up and keyboard would respond etc.

Took a look at it, opened it up, noticed a bad plug coming into the inverter, crumbled when i pulled it out of the socket on the inverter.

So reckoned bad screen / CCFL / inverter/cable, so quoted £150 to swap the lot and replace the bad laptop to inverter cable.
Parts came today and finally got them fitted (incorrect service manual no help) tried a boot up and still nothing on screen, checked the connection, still nothing, swapped to the other panel in case new panel bad...still nothing.
Last resort connected a monitor to the VGA port...still nothing, checked the monitor and cable with my laptop...works perfectly.

As far as I can tell all connections are tight, I haven't left anything disconnected, there are no beeping error codes.
I'm going to check everything over again tomorrow, but I get the feeling that the GFX chipset has had it, (did a search for DV2500 problems and a list of complaints about dead GFX chipsets came up... )

Any thoughts on other things to try before I admit defeat?

Have you checked the ribbon.

I lost my screen years ago, and been using a 21" dell monitor ever since.

Found the right one for you.

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To change over to the monitor you press fn and f4 I think

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Looks like you've covered everything. I suppose the only other option would be a new systemboard with graphics, but no idea how much that would cost.

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Rich - Thats what I thought, I've got time today so I'm going to take it to bits totally. Likely pointless but free day so might as well have a go.

Scruff: Thanks for the link, however thats the manual I already have and it has several glaring errors (stuff is fixed differently from the way the manual claims it is....thanks though
Plus it wont swap over, usually on POST it will display on both screens, this wont even power up the display.

And you tried holding fn f4 together

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Scruff: indeed I did, indeed i did, trust me, first thing I tried.

If the graphics board is a separate module then yes, it is probably duff. Same thing happened on me on a Dell.

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Unfortunately it seems like you're yet another victim of the DV series graphics chip failure.

HP decided to cut their costs and use cheap solder on their graphics chips. This melts under strain and the chip works loose.

HP acknowledged this as a fault in the USA and extended warranties to 2 years. For some reason they wouldn't do this in the UK, even though they are the same laptops. Your Google searched have obviously seen this anyway.

You may be lucky enough to find someone who repairs them for around £90. Some people reckon they fix it by putting the motherboard in the oven, although this just 'reflows' the GPU chip, leaving it susceptible to the same melting problem at a later date.

Basically, it's a write-off.

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Could you silver solder them Richie. take much more heat.

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Richie : Figured as much, its going to into the parts bin for spares. I'd be tempted to replace the part but at the end of the day, a similar laptop is only ~ £400 new, with more memory and storage so its pointless fixing it.

on a seperate note, does anyone need a 14.1" 1280x800 panel? lol

No idea about silver solder.

These things are all over ebay. HP lost a lot of credibility over this for me.

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sorry guys not convinced with the above reples
does your model have any other video output
this is quite a good laptop with no know issues
i would,nt bin it just yet
you have nothing to loose by taking the base off and giving it a spring clean and checking all connectiond
as mentioned above the ribbons are tempremental to dust and fragile
never heard of silver solder so cant comment
all cercuit boads i repair are done with normal solder
but as you have not gone down that road yet i would sujest a spring clean
its a fairly powerful laptop for its day dont give up on it

DB

A couple of the many web pages to be found regarding the issue:

here and here

I've had at least 10 DV series laptops with this fault brought to me last year.

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I'm convinced of this fault, I tried both options (HDMI and VGA outputs) neither showed anything.
HP did some improvements to the cooling compared to some which are mentioned online, however no where near enough. Thermal paste was poor poor quality and the fan was nowhere near strong enough to dispell the heat even while sitting on cooling pad with integral fans. (The client had owned the laptop for 3 years and always used it ontop of a quality made cooling stand)
If my client had not already purchased a new laptop, I would be recommending he filed a complaint with his retailer as the laptop has a known fault and as such has a requirement to resolve this issue for up to 6 years after purchase. (see www.nvidiadefect.com for more horror stories and advice on what remedies you can seek within the UK)
The main fault is the Nvidia GPU, it kicks out far too much heat for a laptop to dispel.
The wife's Gateway laptop might be heading for a similar fate, the CPU runs at 73C under load, even when using Arctic Silver MX-3 Thermal paste, reason again the GPU and CPU are cooled by a similar flawed design.