Today I was able to fix a “dead” notebook simply by reseating connectors. The customer brought in Compaq nx5000 notebook with the following complaint:
“Laptop shuts down on power up. When the power button is pushed, the laptop flashes green lights for several seconds and then powers down. Unit will not stay on with battery or when plugged in”.
I plugged the AC adapter and tried to turn on the laptop. After I pushed on the power button, fans started spinning and were active for a few seconds and laptop just turned itself off. The video never came on. I tried to power it on for a few times with the same result.
Here is how I fixed it.
First of all I tried simple stuff: remove the battery and start the laptop with AC adapter plugged in, reseat and swap the memory module, remove the hard drive, the DVD drive, the wireless card. Nothing helped to start the laptop normally. After that I went a little bit further. I opened up the laptop case, removed the LCD screen assembly and reseated the video card and… Surprise, surprise, the laptop started fine with an external monitor attached. Just in case I restarted it 3-4 times and each time I got video on the screen. After I assembled everything back, one more surprise was waiting for me. The laptop failed to boot again with the same symptoms. So, the only part that I added before it failed was the LCD screen assembly. I unplugged the video cable from the system board and the laptop started fine again with the external monitor. Now I know that the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly (of course, if the video connector on the system board is fine). The next logical step would be opening up the LCD display assembly and check if all connectors are seated properly. Bingo!!! I wasn’t very surprised, but I was very happy. The video cable was half-way out from the connector on the back of the LCD screen. The laptop started perfectly fine as soon as I plugged the video cable back in place. Fixed!
That was my first experience when improperly plugged video cable prevented entire system from booting.
Read more:
How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems
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January 18th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I have a Hewlett Packard ZE4500 and it has those same symptoms, but the laptop won’t hold a charge when plugged in. When i check the battery life, it’s very low even when its been plugged in for hours. When the adapter is connected to the laptop, it cuts on and shuts down within 3 seconds (same as when you just use the battery). Any idea what the issue is or what i need to do?
January 12th, 2008 at 11:50 am
magz,
You can remove the battery and start the laptop just from the AC adapter. If you experience the same issue even with the battery removed, most likely it’s not your problem and something else is going on.
Could be bad memory, defective keyboard or something is wrong with the motherboard. It’s hard to troubleshoot these kind of problems without looking at the laptop.
Try basic stuff like reseating memory, reconnecting the keyboard cable on the motherboard. Try starting the laptop with an external monitor and see if you get any video on the external screen.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Hi. I have an IBM ThinkPad A21m but got it second hand 5 yrs ago. I’m facing a similar issue.
1. When I turn the power, the LED turns green. (but only if the AC adaptor is connected)
2. When I press the power on again, the light disappears. but if i continue pressing sometimes the other symbols light up. like the caps lock.
Need help. I don’t know if it’s b’coz of battery life but most of the times the AC adaptor is connected when I use it. Or is it b’coz of some more technical reason? Unless it’s too old and has to die?
January 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
thnx for the post.
you solved my problem.
it was exactly as described.
the flat cable connector on the top rear site of the lcd was half way out.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
No1UKnow,
Just in case run the memory test. You can use Memtest86+ if you can start the laptop. Let this test run overnight, so it passes a few time. You’ll see if you get any memory errors.
Try reseating memory, move it from one slot to another.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Fakamaz: Today I had the same exact problem with my M65 – S9063
I put in a new Hitachi 160 GB Drive and loaded up Ubuntu Linux…
Everything was going fine and then after a day or so a program locked up…
The computer did not appear to get hotter than normal, and I use this laptop for hours usually…
I put back in my old hard drive and got the same result nothing came on the screen.
Then after hours, it did turn back on for a few minutes and then the mouse stopped working along with the keyboard…
Then when I reboot, no video again…
I’m really pissed, the computer was working better than ever once I installed the new hard drive, now this…
I’ve had the computer for 4 years and its our of warranty, and no need to buy a new computer… Just need to find what is wrong with this one…
Did I over heat something you think?
December 15th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Hello
first of all I like to thank you for your effort
and if you can send any picture to support the exlanation
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Chris,
this is a really weird problem, I’ve never seen something like this. Just in case check the BIOS version installed on your laptop and upgrade it to the latest one if needed. It’s possible this is a known issue for your laptop model and might be it was fixed in the latest BIOS release.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
I have recently purchased an HDTV with a PC input and I wanted to try connecting up my laptop to it. I purchased the higher quality monitor cable and all displayed as you would expect on it. The problem is when the cooling fan cycles on and off in the laptop. When the fan comes on, the TV goes black and says that it has lost the monitor signal. When the laptop’s fan cuts off, the TV pops back up the computer’s desktop image. Any suggestions to about why the fan is interferring with or killing my external monitor signal?
November 27th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I had the same problem with my Presario V1000. When I press the power button, it will powered on for 2 seconds then goes down, nothing on the screen. When I check for loose connector everything seems fine. The only strange symptom is a high-tone ‘buzzing’ noise from inside. When it buzzing the battery-charging indicator LED off (also my windows battery status say so) even my battery isn’t full yet. I suspect something wrong with power module, but i don’t know what. Do you have any idea?