So I turned on my laptop today to find that the monitor finally bit the dust, it flashes on for a half second every second and it's incredibly irritating. I turned it off in a panic, hoping that it was just an intermittent problem, but that proved to be a huge mistake.
I was able to connect an old monitor that works, and that would normally be fine, but for whatever reason I'm suddenly unable to actually get Windows to boot to even use it. I installed Ubuntu ages ago and never removed it so I have the prompt asking which OS to boot when my computer starts up, but selecting Windows Vista (which is somewhat difficult since for some reason the keyboard only seems to work for the split second the screen is lit so I have to time my keystrokes) just causes it to reboot. Ubuntu works fine minus the keyboard not working altogether from that point on, and it even automatically detected and used the spare monitor, but that hasn't proven to be much help. The display settings there have no impact on the computer prior to choosing an OS, and I can't think of anything else to try. Fn + F8 for Presentation Mode doesn't switch to the other monitor during boot either, even if I time it with the flashes.
I'm not really sure what kind of help I'm even looking to find here, but I'm at the end of my rope.
