After disassembly Dell Vostro 3300 wont function properly.

Tengu1991

Commendable
Sep 10, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hello everyone, after wrapping my head around this problem trying to search the whole internet for days i decide that i would be better off asking for help.
I have basic knowledge and pratice when it comes to hardware and had disassembled a few laptops before this, however i got into a big problem with this laptop.


I disassembled this one for some cleaning and maintenance and after assembling it back partially to test out the screen didn't turned on but aparently it was working normally by the booting light pattern it has. A few hours trying to find something online an trying reconnecting the monitor cable and check over and ovver didnt work. As i was doint it quickly i decided to put out all other hardware parts attached to the motherboard so i could easy have access to it, i decided to put only 1 ram slot to make it quick for me and as a result the screen finally lighted up and displayed video however the video was strange, it seems to have a VERY slow refresh rate, and seems to be displaying a backlight brightness that is hard to describe. And if i installed any ram back on slot 2 it would not work again, i tried many times.

So i searched for monitor problems online and nothing similar and useful i could find . I thought it could be the monitor, then the cable, then the sockets on motherboard... after many tries i dont know what is going on.

A video problem that is influenced by RAM slots...

One finding from the internet i couldnt test is that this all could possibly be that the motherboard isnt sending enough energy to some components and that maybe i could try to adjust voltages in the BIOS. However i dont even know if is possible because the BIOS is locked down by dell... and aparently this seem to be a big problem among dell owners.

All i can try now is to find a custom or stock unlocked bios to flash and hope that i can have control over voltages... i have no idea what else to do after this and sadly i doubt it will have adjustments like that in this BIOS
 
Solution
Before going all crazy with alterations/replacements. :) Have you tried plugging in an external monitor and seen if it will work correctly? This can help you rule out many problems.