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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June 24th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Samuel,
You said that the laptop screen works for 10 minutes. Does it mean that during that time the laptop works normally and you can see normal desktop on the screen? After the screen goes blank, is it completely dark or you still can see the backlight? Can you see a very dim image if you look at the screen very closely?
Did you test your laptop with an external monitor? Will it go blank the same way as video on the laptop LCD?
June 24th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
i have a thinkpas ibm laptop that boots and displays for 10min and after tha goes blank and when it comes up again, it boots all over again and this displays nothing on the screen. pls what should i do
May 25th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Hello
please I need to get knowledge where to find this LCD screen assembly in my nx5000 hp compaq laptop (by pictures if possible)
Thanks
May 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
My NX5000 has a slightly different problem – boots OK but the built-in screen displays only the faintest image, then fades completely. An external monitor works fine. Is this problem likely to be the connectors to the screen, or the screen itself?
Any help appreciated
May 11th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Just a small update, one year later. I got a new laptop from work, so I didn’t bother to pursue the issue any further; if I desperately needed to boot the old one — the compaq nx5000 I had trouble with (it has a better sound card than the new one) — I’d press “on” until it started: usually after about 20-50 attempts.
Today, I had some spare time, and I took the whole thing apart, down to the system board — loosened and put back in again every connection I could find — and when I had put everything back together again — … it worked as new. I’ve tried a couple of times now, and it seems to be permanent. Then again, that’s probably what Adam thought too….
Just thought I’d let you know.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I had a power issue with the plug not seating very well, so took the cover off to see if I could get to the plug. Found out I couldn’t very well, so put it back together (I only took the heat sink out and cleaned it while it was out) and when I turned it on the fans started up, then shut off. The display never turned on. Didn’t have either of those problems before, just a mostly dead battery and a ac/dc adapter plug that would make a loose connection on the computer. Any thoughts? I’m willing to try the memory card first. Hopefully it’s not the motherboard…
March 14th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 5601. I updated the system drivers direct from the Acer website. After that, the system froze. I had to shut it down manually and now it does nothing. THe power button does nothing. I won’t power up on battery or AC Power. I tried everything to decipher the problem. If any knows how to fix it or has a diagram of how to take apart the system, please get back to me. Thanks!
March 12th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Kenny Hendrick,
In order to start any laptop with video you’ll need only few major parts: motherboard, video card (if it’s a separate module), CPU and memory. Most laptops have integrated video card and they need only motherboard, CPU (with heatsink/fan) and memory.
If you connect all these three pats together and all these parts in good working condition, you should be able to start the laptop with video, at least get the logo. Make sure all three parts are properly connected, reseat the memory module.
In your case the laptop starts but there is no video, so it’s either memory (check first), CPU (fails rarely) or motherboard (fails often). I would say memory – the best case scenario bad connection or bad memory, the worst case scenario – bad motherboard.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
p.s….this is the second time i’ve taken it all apart but this time it’s a few steps further…there’s never been video out of this machine since it arrived (phew).
March 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Hello and many thanks for this website…
I have a relatively new laptop that came in here R3430 and all the lights come on all over the machine but nothing out of video and nothing out of the crt connection even with the lcd disconnected….I’ve taken every screw out of the unit….i’m surrounded by parts and trust god to put all this crap together later….anyway, I was wondering what the worst and best scenarios would be here…after reading some of the posts here I feel it’s moot taking apart the screen itself (it’s already disconnected….everything is disconnected)….
Thanks for your time.