Paul,
    With the laptop still connected to the monitor, try holding down
the FN key and then press F2.  Most laptops use that key sequence to
switch or share video output.  If that does not work, then you might
have a hardware failure.

hopefully that helps,
Derek Buchanan

On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Hachmeyer, Mr. Paul S.
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have an HP Pavilion DV2500 series, DV2710us laptop from a friend.  After fully charging the battery, I power it up, I can hear the hard drive spinning, but no video.  I plugged in a CRT monitor, it displays color bars and no video signal message with ac power only.  When I plug it into the video port on the laptop, the screen goes completely blank, and no video comes on.
> Is there a key to activate the video out, or is it likely a total video failure or ?  What other troubleshooting is possible without any specialty equipment?
> OS unknown, 2 gb  pc2-5300 ram.
> Paul
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