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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May 15th, 2009 at 7:08 am
hello
i have a hp pavallion dv6000. It has same problems (shuts down 1sec after startup no video) So i opened it up, did what you did (i guess) but all the cables seemed fine. im not english so i could have misunderstood this whole thing
thanks in advance
April 27th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Daniel,
1. It’s possible that one of the memory modules is bad. Try removing memory modules one by one and test the laptop with each one separately.
2. If the laptop fails the same way with each memory module installed into each slot, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard. It’s unlikely that both memory modules failed at the same time.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Hi,
I have a HP DV6324 Pavilion with a similar problem.
When I start the computer, the fan spins for 2 seconds and them stops.
5 Seconds later the computer reboots by itself and the same thing happens..
Steps:
1- Turn the PC ON
2- Lights are on, Fan Spins for 2 seconds and then stops
3- 5 Seconds later PC shuts down by itself, and goes back to Step-1
PS: Screen is blank 100% of the times, I don’t see anything, not even with an external monitor.
What can I do?
April 9th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
John,
Sounds like a problem with the motherboard or video card. If the video card is integrated into the motherboard, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I have an HP 6910p laptop that quit working after a week of no use and o battery in it.
Currently, it will not do anything from the battery. No lights of any kind light up and the power button does nothing.
With AC power, when I plug it in the laptop immediately powers on (the power button light goes yellow, but no other lights), the fan turns on, and the screen lights up with some thin colored lines off to the left of the screen with the rest of the screen being blank. After 2-5 seconds the computer and display turn off and pressing the power button doesn’t do anything. Only after unplugging and replugging the power adapter back in will it try to turn back on.
The laptop is one of 2 6910s that are about 1.5 years old, started with an XP ISO and has been running Vista for about a year. I’ve tried swapping power adapters and batteries, and reseting the power and memory.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Illusionist,
Could be memory related problem. Try removing memory modules one by one and start the laptop with each modules separately. Does it fail the same way when only one memory module is installed?
Could be a problem with the motherboard.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Neeraj,
Does it fail the same way if you start just from the battery?
Can you hear the cooling fan?
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite A135 that powers up for a few seconds, I can either get to the Bios Config and move for a few seconds then it freezes on whatever screen i’m in or press F12 to choose a boot up option but it freezes as well. I also hear some weird static coming from the speakers when this happeneds but i have no idea what it could be. Any help would be appreciated.
April 2nd, 2009 at 2:44 am
when i power on my laptop 1st screen appears but after few seconds it powers off what to do to shortout this problem.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:10 pm
sabrie,
Maybe the laptop shuts down because it overheats? Take a look inside the air intake for the cooling fan. Does it look dusty? Try cleaning the heat sink with compressed air. Spray the air inside the fan, it should be enough to clean the heat sink temporarily and finish installing XP.
Try running the installation process again.