BleepingComputer.com: Hp Laptop Startup Problems

Hi, thanks for having this forum.

My friend has a HP laptop, that boots up sometimes in safe mode, then the screen shows all lines across it then nothing happens. The fan does appear to be running correctly. Also, sometimes, the screen will go blank and freeze at startup. This laptop was bought a year ago. I have not looked at it yet, I am just telling you what he is telling me.

Any ideas from the info given what the devil it could be.He has no clue as to what to do, and i have some ideas, but need to make sure I can get into
safe mode first.

Now barring that, Can I somehow connect my functioning laptop to his, and download the info that he needs from the harddrive, into my own laptop?

I read somewhere about an IDE connector.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

I just realized it might be his graphics card.....possible?

I've gotta run right now - but try connecting the laptop to an external monitor. You may need to press the Fn key along with the key that looks like 2 monitors in order to get it to work.

thank you for your time, can some enlighten me on how to do this in detail as Im a novice!
thanks!

There will be a connector for an external monitor on the side or back of the laptop - plug a normal computer monitor into it. It should recognize it immediately - but if it doesn't, press the blue Fn key in the lower left corner of the keyboard and hold it. Then press the key along the top of the keyboard that has the 2 monitors on it. Release the key and the monitor should work.

Another way is to hook the monitor up, then turn the computer on. Most systems will recognize the monitor immediately.

Your video card is definitely dying. Those lines are called artifacts which happens with a dying GPU or RAM or another bad component on the video card. On some laptops you can replace the video card.