Laptop Display Troubles

[dude8604]

This message might be kind of long, so I'll put a brief summary at the end. Someone at my dad's office dropped an old AMD K6 233mHz laptop a few weeks ago. He brought it home to see if I could fix it. The display was cracked, but the backlight worked. [unimportant tangent] I bought a LCD display off of ebay which wasn't the same size and wasn't guaranteed to be working. The panel worked but the backlight was bad. I tried taking the working backlight from the old display and attaching it to the new panel, but that didn't work.[/unimportant tangent]

Anyway, I took the whole screen off of it to use as a computer that doesn't take up much space. I did that fine, turned it on and hooked up an external monitor. That worke fine. Here's the problem: I went into the BIOS to mess with some settings. I was trying to find a way to cut power to the LCD, as I had to cut some wires to remove the screen. There was an option to choose a display. The options were "auto", something I don't remember, and "simultaneous". I switched it from simultaneous to auto, thinking that the computer would choose the external monitor. I was wrong. Now when I turn on the computer, there is nothing on the attached external monitor. I have tried resetting the bios by pressing keys and hoping that I was in the right menu, but none of it worked. What can I do to activate the external monitor video output?

The computer is a Chembook 5033 with BIOS 1.06. The computer is not listed on Chembook's support site, and an extensive google search didn't show much, except that it MIGHT be the same as the Mitek 5033, but I don't know. Thanks for any help!

Summary:
Had laptop with broken screen. Removed screen to use the comp with an external monitor. Changed BIOS setting, and now the external monitor shows nothing. Read above for more details.

 

[redbeard1]

Most laptops have a FN key, which is short for function. The color of the text usually is different than the other keys. On some of the regular keys, is a second symbol, which matches the FN key color. By holding the FN key and pressing these same keys with the secondary color and symbol you can activate whatever the symbol indicates. There should be a key with dual squares or a monitor symbol on it. By pressing the FN key and the monitor key, you can toggle what screen is being used, lcd or monitor, or on some systems, both. You should be able to power it on and toggle the screens this way.

 

[dude8604]

I held FN and tried all of the F keys. One of them looked sort of like the one you are describing, but nothing happened when I pressed it with the FN key. Any other ideas? Thanks for trying to help!

 

[dude8604]

up

 

[Tal]

I concur with RedBeard. Also, Try holding the F1 key at boot. That option in the bios sounds like what the toshibas have for options. F1 does it on Toshibas I think. -TAL