In this post I’ll explain how to troubleshoot a dead laptop and find the problem. The following troubleshooting tips are not model and brand specific, they should work for most laptops.
Let’s take a look at two different scenarios.
Example 1. The laptop is absolutely dead.
When you plug in the power adapter and press on the power button, there is no signs of life at all. The laptop will not make usual noises, LEDs will not light up, the fan will not spin, the screen is blank and black, etc… In short, the laptop is dead.
What you can do in this case?
1. Make sure the wall outlet is working and the laptop DC adapter is getting power from the outlet. Try another wall outlet.
2. Test the laptop DC power adapter, make sure the voltage output is correct. You can test the DC power adapter with a voltmeter.
3. Let’s say the DC adapter is fine and the adapter outputs correct voltage. In this case unplug the power adapter from the laptop, remove the battery, wait for 1-2 minutes, plug in the adapter and try turning on the laptop again.
OK, you tested the adapter and it’s bad. If you decide to replace the original DC adapter with a generic one, you’ll have to follow this rule:
The voltage output on your new adapter has to be exactly the same as on the original adapter. The amperage on the new adapter could be the same or higher.
If nothing helps and the laptop is still dead, apparently the motherboard is fried or there is a problem with the DC power jack. It’s possible the DC power jack is broken and the motherboard is not getting any power from the adapter. In this case you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and replace the power jack. Check out this guide for fixing laptop power jack.
Example 2. When you plug the DC power adapter and press on the power button, the laptop starts making normal noises, the LEDs work properly but noting appears on the screen. The laptop will not start.
First of all, take a closer look at the LCD screen. Look at the screen under bright light. It’s possible that the image is still on the screen but it’s very faint. If that’s the case, check out these tips for troubleshooting laptop with backlight failure.
If there is no image on the laptop LCD screen, test the laptop with an external monitor. Connect an external monitor to the VGA port on your laptop and turn the laptop on. You can toggle video output between the internal LCD screen and external monitor by pressing Fn and F4 keys simultaneously on HP laptops, Fn and F5 keys on Toshiba laptops, Fn and F7 keys on IBM laptops. Other laptops may use different key combinations.
Let’s say the external monitor works fine but the internal LCD screen has no image at all. If that’s the case, your problem could be related to the LCD screen or the video cable. Also, make sure the video cable makes good connection with the motherboard and the LCD screen. Try reconnecting, reseating the cable.
In my case, both internal and external monitors were absolutely dead. Neither of them had image. That means the problem is not related to the LCD screen or the video cable. From my experience I know that this problem could be related to the laptop memory.
Try reseating the memory module, maybe it’s not making good connection with the memory slot. Try cleaning contacts on the memory module with pen eraser. Try moving the memory module into another slot. Try replacing the memory module with another known good module, it’s possible that your original module is dead.
If you have two memory modules installed you can try removing them one by one, it’s possible that one of the modules is bad. Try installing different memory modules into different memory slots.
In my case reseating, swapping the memory module didn’t help. I was pretty confident that my problem is not memory related and I moved on.
Try removing battery, hard drive and DVD drive and turning on the laptop without these components.
Also, try turning on the laptop with an external monitor when the video cable is unplugged from the motherboard. If the laptop start with video on the external monitor, apparently there is something wrong with the laptop display panel.
In my case removing the hard drive and DVD drive didn’t help. Unplugging the video cable didn’t help either.
I continued taking my laptop apart piece by piece and tested it after each step.
I removed wireless card, modem, disconnected the keyboard but it didn’t help.
I still wasn’t able to boot the laptop with video on the external monitor.
Finally, I disassembled the laptop and removed the motherboard.
On this picture you see my final test. The motherboard has been removed from the base and I assembled basic barebone system on my bench.
1. Motherboard. Like on most laptops, in my case the video card is integrated into the motherboard
2. CPU with heatsink and cooling fan.
3. Known good memory module.
4. The power button board witch I need to turn on the system.
5. Working DC power adapter.
Still cannot get any video on the external monitor. The system turns on, the cooling fan starts spinning but there is no video.
At this point I’m 95% sure that the motherboard is dead. CPU failures are not very common, so it must be bad motherboard.
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June 15th, 2008 at 8:27 am
[...] Related post: How to troubleshoot dead laptops. [...]
June 20th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I discover on all hp dv series(2000,6000,9000) that the board powers but does not display until some force is applied by the tumb near the keyboard/system controller/bios area(ene embedded chip)before it at times display.Whats like a permanent solution
June 20th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
how can battery charging problem be solved on laptop board even if it does not have to function anymore with the windos software dictection of the battery
June 20th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Kayobe S,
That sounds like bad solder joints somewhere on the motherboard. I’ve seen that before on some Toshiba laptops/motherboards. Unfortunately, I don’t think that you can fix these kind of problems at home. You’ll have to replace the motherboard.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I have a similar problem with the Dell Latitude D610 series, if i try to power after the battery is dead, the laptop does not power ,it only gives a wink of the LEDS,within seconds trips off with an accompanying sound.
It does not work with the AC Adapter without enough battery in it.it only charges when the battery is full enough. please help, am still troubleshooting though.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:14 am
The problem was as described above in the example 2. The black screen with nothing happening inside upon start (no HD activity, no keyboard checkup, no nothing. Following your advice, I took the battery out, waited few minutes, plugged in the AC and it came back. THANK YOU A MILLION!
The laptop was Toshiba satellite something-something (6 months old, thousand bucks good)
June 30th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I have a hp dv6265ca laptop. Recently it would come on by itself with the dvd drive lights on and some sounds coming from the harddisk area. Then it finally stopped coming on altogether, when i push the on button the led lights up for about a second then goes off, but there is no sound, no fan spinning or anything else, just the power on led for a second then off.
I have no idea what the problem may be.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:41 am
I have th same problem for my VGN-C140
when I turn on power the screen black out no picture at all,but the background process still running,(i still get hear start up sound after a while -> entering OS)
but some times after I leave it for a while I try to restart it again and it’s perfectly okay no problem at all
Do you guys any idea what happen with my laptop?
July 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
You have a lot of intresting info on your website, and I learned a lot of it as I was looking for info on laptop screens with low light output as on one of our laptops, the Acer Travelmate 2490.
The laptop works fine and I can see all ouput information on the LCD screen. However the screen is pretty dark and I can barely read the information. I disassembled the LCD screen and the backlight lamp is litting up. I assume that the brightness of the lamp is gone down very much. Can such a lamp loose a lot on brightness ? Or is such a lamp go/nogo ?
Thanks for your advice.
July 11th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Help!! I dropped water on my laptop and everything works fine now except for the crackling noice emanating from my speakers. The water was dropped on the keyboard and speaker which is at the very top of the keyboard. I have a Dell Vostro 1400 and I don’t know how to fix this! Please help… thank you
July 13th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Oliver,
First of all, test the laptop with another known good AC adapter. You can test the AC adapter with a multimeter. Make sure the adapter outputs correct voltage.
If your adapter is good, you may have a problem with the motherboard.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Kresna,
Could be loose connection between the video cable and LCD or motherboard. In a case like that I would try reseating the video cable on both LCD and motherboard.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Paul Gys,
First of all, check all brightness related settings. On some laptops you can change brightness even in the BIOS setup menu. Make sure it’s not just settings related issue.
If the backlight lights up but barely glowing, probably the backlight lamp is dying and has to be replaced.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Kat,
Apparently water damaged the motherboard. I cannot tell you what is wrong without taking a closer look at the motherboard.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Paul Gys,
Here’s an update for my comment 13 and maybe some help to your comment 9.
Today I had to troubleshoot a Toshiba laptop with the backlight failure.
Failure symptoms:
The laptop starts but there is no backlight. Sometimes the backlight flickers on and off. After a while it goes off completely. I still can see the image but it’s very dark.
Also, there is a constant buzzing noise coming from the inverter.
Troubleshooting steps:
I removed the display bezel, so I can access the inverter board. I unplugged the LCD screen backlight from the inverter board and connected by test backlight lamp. Still same problem! My test backlight was barely glowing on one end and the inverter was buzzing.
I installed new inverter and it fixed the problem. The LCD screen is bright again.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Hi, i’ve got the problem just like the one that you trying to explain with this guide, can you please help me ..
how to open the laptop, just like you did on this guide? sorry for my bad english. hope you understand. Thanks.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Hello,
I have a problem with my dell latitude d610, it operates normally without any problem, and then all of a sudden I get the message that my ac adapter has been disconnected and I am on battery power now, but I did not disconnect it.
It keeps discharging and starts working again whenever it feels like, maybe after 2 days or maybe after the battery has discharged by 90 %.
During this time I dont move the laptop or try to fix it it just stops charging and startgs again by itself.
also during this period, the remaining battery life is show as something like 1027:16 hours remaining.
can you please tell me what may e the problem with my laptop?
July 20th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
David Kaunang,
Check out the Laptop Service Manual Category on the right side of the website. I post links to service manuals and disassembly instructions in this category.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Faraz,
Could be power jack related problem. Maybe the jack is not making good connection with the motherboard and has to be resoldered.
Check out this post, maybe you have the same problem with your laptop.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Dear all,
I am facing a strange problem. My Laptop is totally dead (Not responds anything after pressing power button) but when i plug the adapter the battery LED is emitting and showing its full charge color. What are possible problems? Can you give some solutions?
July 28th, 2008 at 1:37 am
ihave my laptop when i press the power on the led is ligth but ther is no emage on lcd . sometimes when i push thepower on the have image and run normaly . when i shutdown the computer and re start it again no moreimage on the lcd .can you help me on my problem. anyway mylaptop is syntax model a530.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
gil h. lariosa,
Did you test the laptop with an external screen? The image disappears from both screens, internal and external? Could be memory problem. Try reconnecting the memory module. Test your laptop with another working memory.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:22 am
may be you already test basic troublesooting..hope i can help you..try to check the inverter b+,swichting,sensor,adj….using the volt meter,usually in normal condition that pin have volts..if okay replace the inverter..if no b+ posible the problem is with in the mother board, check the failure of switching circuit of backlight nare the video connector on motherboard usaully they use transistor..NOTE: ONLY FOR SERVICE PERSONEL.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Alright here is the problem.
At first my Presario would boot up fine and run. But the slightest movement such as shifting with it in my lap would cause the screen to either go blank or create vertical lines. It would work perfectly still on a desk. Now I have gotten to the point where it wont boot up all the time. The fan will spin the power light and wireless light come on but the hard drive light will flash x2 in a repeating fashion. It also has a very low audible sound it makes when the hard drive light flashes. Any advice would be appreciated.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
It’s frustrating. The M35 when in failure mode lights up and charges and runs fan for 1 sec.but no boot.
Upward pressure on the dc jack enable it to boot normally.
Once running , the slightest shock (hitting a key e.g.or moving the lid)) will stop it. Evidently there is a systemboard crack near the back but after removing the pcb and staring at it thru a glass, until blue in the face, I cant see it. I’ll never trace the open circuit without a schematic
Right now I have a piece of foam wedged under the dc jack doing upward pressure. I have switched away from Toshiba.
August 9th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
My Niece closed my laptop screen down very hard in a fit of anger at her brother and now the Laptop will not display. Have a compaq presario c500. Is there a micro switch or sensor that could be suspect? When the laptop worked before, the laptop when closed would power down the machine. I have taken it most the way apart, but cannot see a micro-switch anywhere around the hinge area or LCD. Left hinge contained the display cable, Right hinge contained a black and a white wire that snake through the bezel of the LCD and terminate on 2 different side into some type of clip. I believe it may just be the leads for the Wifi antenna, but perhaps not. I would like to find the schematic for it, but have had no luck finding it (yes I checked your documentation) Any other advice?
August 10th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Jeremy,
Try removing the hard drive and powering up the laptop. Will you get any video on the screen when the hard dive is removed?
August 10th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Tony,
Did you test the laptop with an external monitor? Maybe the laptop itself works fine but there is a problem with the LCD screen. It’s possible the video cable got disconnected from the LCD screen and because of that you have no video. Can you see external video?
Yep, that’s Wi-Fi antenna cables.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
my laptop is dead due to bios setup, how can i reset a cmos on motherboard.. thanks
August 10th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
bernard,
You can try disconnecting the CMOS battery for a while but I’m not sure if it will help.
If your laptop failed while upgrading the BIOS, for example it lost power, it’s possible that the BIOS got corrupted. If that’s the case, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:16 am
To the person made the guide nice job…
Now with your experience can you go into more detail bring back a dead laptop ? i mean there places they bring those motherboard back depending on what happen… like example short circuit… from a outage can this be repair? or checking regulator and how check them with meter so on
August 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Mel,
When I find that there is a problem with the motherboard, I just purchase a new motherboard. I do not repair them except replacing bad power jack.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:40 am
cj2600,
I will keep researching to find someone out there willing teach more advance stuff repairing laptop motherboard. I don’t give easy.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:52 am
mel,
Please let me know if you find any source on the web.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
There are few more steps you can take to fix the motherboard, rather than just saying its dead.
For example if you follow the editors steps and the laptop turns on and no video on the LCD, its apparently the video chip on the motherboard. This problem usually happens to P4/PM/Centrino Boards. The only thing you should do is to reflow the chip, which you can either do it with a expensive oven, or a good heat gun, the one I use is “Milwaukee 8978-20″ since it does not have L shape handel its easier to hold while sitting at the table and cost only $99 in Amazon. The other thing you need is a Infrared Thermometer like Fluke 63 which is what I use and you can get it on Amazon for $130, to measure heat of the core while reflowing it. To know more about the reflow cycle watch the video “Re-flow Video Card IBM T41p Latop motherboard.” Thats how you fixed the video problem.
Lets get back to the main problem, if your laptop does not turn at all, and you have cheked the power jack allready, check the fuses on the board beside the powerjack, always check those with the buzzer on the multimeter, If the buzzer does not beep across the fuze that means…. Another thing to remeber is watch the board closely, and try to find any visual defects, usually if the SMD components burn their color changes and they sometimes crack too so if you look carefully you might be able to point it visually. Wherever you see there is food crumps or dirt or you might suspect there is a short in the circuit clean it with Isopropyl alcohol and a tooth brush. You can also test the SMD component of the power circuit with the buzzer mode on the multimeter. The buzzer on Good “C” Capacitor should not beep, On the Good “L” Inductor should beep, On the resistor depends on the Resistance so if small R beeps if not test it with the resistance measurement on the multimeter if it is Zero or Open the resistor is bad. Check the on board SMD power button test it with multimeter too I have exprienced after testing the whole board the power button is bad. I will add on stuff later. Cheers
August 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Sam Modonpour,
Thank you very much for your really valuable comment.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Can anyone help me troubleshoot whether my motherboard is dead?
Giving you only information that when I press the on button on my Inspiron E1405, which is attached to the wall even or running on battery, the LED lights go on (screen is black). After ..mm.. about 2-3 seconds of the LED being on (while still with black screen) the laptop powers off.
Dead?
August 26th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Kris,
1. Make sure the power adapter is working properly.
2. Minimize the laptop as much as you can as I suggested in the post. Test the laptop again. If the laptop still turns on for 2-3 seconds (without video) and then turns off by itself, probably it’s related to the motherboard.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
yeah.. its dead. lol
now im gonna have to decide between replacing motherboard or buying new laptop.
is there anyway to get my data from the harddrive using my desktop?
August 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Kris,
Sure. Check out this post: Accessing notebook hard drive using USB enclosure.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
i have a dead dell inspiron model PP10L.
my dell was working fine then all of a sudden it will not turn on. no lights no noise no sign of any life in it. i tested to see if we had power to the power cord/adapter and i get the 20 volts. we now that is ok i have removed hdd, battery, and still no sign of life. i was thinking the maybe it is my dc jack. when i plug the cord to the laptop there is a little play but it does not matter if i wiggle the cord in any direction and attempting to power up its still a no go. i guess i need to take the laptop apart and see if the jack is broken or loose. has anyone had any problems of this kind with there dell. thanks
September 9th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Jose,
Take a closer look at the power jack. If you have a voltmeter, you can test if the power gets to the motherboard when the power adapter is plugged in.
If the motherboard gets power from the adapter but has no signs of life, it’s possible that you have a blown fuse witch can be replaced by a technician with some soldering experience. If the fuse is OK, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard.
September 13th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Reading laptop BIOS Post Codes with a second PC
I have purchased a Post Code Adapter but it’s readings make no sense to me.
My faulty laptop is a Toshiba S2450-S203, after switch-on the following front LED’s are
lit: DC IN 15V, Power, Battery & Disk. There are no beeps and nothing on the screen.
I do have the post code meanings but the final reading for the adapter at parallel port of
my faulty laptop was 00FF and before that LP__, END_, 5005, then flashing numbers.
These do not tell me what is wrong.
Because the post codes are issued to the parallel port I would have expected that
someone would have written a program to log these messages on another PC via a direct
parallel port cable connection. Does you know of any such software?
—————————————————————————————-
September 13th, 2008 at 5:16 am
Same problem. Thanks for the graphics. Got some idea now!
September 15th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Satellite m35x, just fixed the dc input worked well, however now I can not get it to boot. I traced it to the little switch that sticks up out of the case, the standby switch I guess. When you close the cover it puts the computer on standby. I know this is the problem because if I figit with it it will eventually get the computer to work. I am thinking it is a bad swith or connection to the board. Anyway to replace or repair this? Where would I find a new one? Please help!!!!!!!
September 15th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I have a dead Benq Joybook 7000 with beep sound very loud.
It is already broken a year ago and I have tried to ask the benq service centre about this problem. They said it is a main board failure and it cost about $ 300.
After I found this very useful web site, I try to implement all the advice but still don’t work for it. From reseating the memory, remove the hard disk, remove the battery, remove wifi and modem, and test it with external monitor.
The symptom is like this: if I press the power button, the light indicator glow normally and the beep sound is loud with no picture in LCD. After I press and hold the power button again, the beep sound stop and the laptop shut off. But if I try to press the power button once again, the processor fan spin with no beep sound but the LCD still blank and seems the laptop not working at all.
I really need any advice to fix my laptop problems.
Thank you.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
HELP! My daughter has a Compaq Presario V3000 laptop. She said she was posting on http://www.myyearbook.com when it “crashed”. I started it up and the hard drive made 2 booting noises and then stopped but the screen never lit up. I tried the HP guide steps- reseating the memory and then let my brother try to boot from an install CD. He felt it was a hard drive problem. I purchased a new hard drive tonight from Best Buy and am attempting to use my other daughter’s Recovery CDs to reboot. I’m on CD6 (out of 10) and have still not seen any flicker on the screen. I hooked up my desktop monitor to the laptop during this process and the screen was blank.
From what I’ve read, this may be the motherboard. I’ve put $85 in it already (with the new hard drive) and need to know where to stop. Last Christmas I bought the younger daughter a very similar laptop for $399. It looks like replacing the motherboard is going to cost another $200 and I’m not guaranteed that will work. Is there a way I can rule out everything else and know that it’s just the motherboard?
Funds are very tight right now but I HAVE to get her off my computer. As a rule, I was reformatting her laptop every other month because of irreparable viruses (virii?) and/or spyware or some other incompatible program she downloaded.
Any ideas?
September 15th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Rich,
So, when you tapping on the lid close switch the laptop sometimes starts fine, correct? Try this. Remove the keyboard bezel – the plastic cover above the keyboard and try turning the laptop on without this cover. Can you?
If the laptop starts fine without the cover, most likely there is nothing wrong with the lid close switch which is soldered to the motherboard but there could be a problem with the white button attached to the keyboard bezel. Apparently, the white button is not seated correctly and when you install the keyboard bezel on the laptop it’s pressing on the lid close switch all the time. Take a closer look at the button on the keyboard bezel.
September 15th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Kasan,
Could be bad memory. I would try replacing the memory module with another known working module.
September 15th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Karen,
The first thing to try would be replacing the memory module with another one. Your description sounds like a problem with the memory. I could be wrong, but replacing the memory module would be the first thing to try.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I have tried starting it without the bezel on there and still will not work. Again if I figit with the button, I get it to work for a second then it happens again. Can I remove the button from the board and bypass this. Or, where can I find a replacement button?
October 4th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Hello, like everyone else here, I am trying to fix my laptop. It’s a
Sony Vaio laptop. I’m not sure if the problem is ram related, but before anything happens, SOMETIMES the screen LCD is working, and sometimes not. I’ve tried booting up a disk but with no avail. I’ve tried pulling out the RAM and redoing it, with some luck, but then on the 2nd try, once again nothing. I’d continue further, but I don’t have the slightest idea on how to do it.
Regards,
Carlosab
October 5th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
hi I am very knew with my knew over $1,200 dollar lap top and these aren’t bragging right’s I saved for this thing forever and it’s totally caused me to quit school this semester etc,,,I did’nt buy the 300 dollar warranty but I have a brand knew HP and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong it’ was getting so hot and I bought a fan for under it, and now it just goes completely black, I’ve taken it to best buy before they seem not to want to fix it, my printer won’t stay on line I’m completely frustrated, they said to bring it back for a 3 day diagnostic whatever, it get’s so hot, I take it to my fan hold it there then after about 10 minutes it works for about 5 minutes it’s a joke, does anyone have any suggestions? please anything? thank you in advance
October 10th, 2008 at 1:59 am
I’ve a HP Pavillion Laptop.It was workin for the past one year but one day when i started the laptop the display didn’t showed up though the LED were working & it was givin some strange beeps.I’ve tried resetting the memory module but it didn’t work.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I have the same problem as 54th. also HP Pavillion. also worked for about 1 year and one day when i started the laptop the display didn’t showed up though the LED were working. The difference is I didn’t hear any strange beeps.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Nikhil,
Could be bad memory module. If you have two RAM modules installed, try removing them one by one. Test your laptop with each memory module in each slot.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:06 am
HEELO EVERYBODY! MY NAME IS OLU ,MY FUJITSU AMILO LI1705 GOT STUCKED FOR THE PAST 3 DAYS, THE LAPTOP POWERS ON BUT NO DISPLAY , I CAN SEE THE LED LIGHTS ON , BOTH WIRELESS LED AND THE POWER ON LED’S ARE ON , THIS PROBLEM STARTS INITIALLY,WHEN I WAS WORKING ON THE SYSTEM AND ANY LITTLE SHAKE , THE SYSTEM WILL FREEZE, THEN I WILL PRESS THE POWER BUTTON AND HOLD FOR FEW SECONDS TO RESTART THE SYSTEM , THEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR LIKE 3 MORE TIMES , THEN THE EVENTUAL HAPPENS, MY SYSTEM IS NOT COMING UP AGAIN, THEN SOMEONE TOLD ME IT MIGHT BE THE HARD DISK OR THE RAM , I SHOULD REMOVE IT AND CLEAN IT, BUT SADLY WHEN I OPENED THE SYSTEM , I SAW THAT THE FAN HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED FROM THE BAORD AND I RECONNECT IT, THEN I CLEANED THE HARD DISK ANND THE RAM , AND POWER IT ON AGAIN , AGAIN NOTHING CAME UP , THE SYSTEM REMAINS IN THE SAME STATE OF COMMATOSE, AND I AM HAVING ALMOST ALL MY PIECES OF LIFE ON THAT SYSTEM , MY BUSINESS PROPOSALS AND MY FINAL YEAR PROJECT ARE ALL THERE STUCK UP , I EVEN WONDERING WHATSHAPPENING TO ME , MY LIFE IS LIKE GOING OFF THE RAIL , KIND LY PLEASE HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
October 31st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Thanks so much, I was having trouble getting any display on the LCD or external monitor on my HP nc6220 laptop.
I removed the extewrnal ram module and restarted and it worked!!!.
I cannot believe this could be the problem.
thanks for this website.
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 am
I refer to your web side ,
my hp compaq presario v5000 mother board confirm dead.
i want to replace my mother board
can’t find the mother board ,
can you sell it to me
November 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I had a Dell latitude that I bought second hand work 3 times and today when I tried to use it no power with either the the AC adapter or battery. Looks like the system board went belly up.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
hey I need some help here,
I have a dell latitude c840, I think my battery or my adapter is gone. I got an exact replacement 2 months ago, it is the same adapter but battery is 6 years old. Okay my problem is that when the computer is plugged into the adapter and the computer is off, the battery LED blinks constantly a green light every second, no pauses. I take the battery out and the computer is plugged into the adapter and the computer will not turn on at all. I do not know what it could be. I took the whole damn computer apart like 20 minutes ago and the connection on the motherboard seems fine, it doesnt look borken or anything. Please help me. my email is jakelabelle@comcast.net.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am
As with comment 57 I am having the same problems with my FSC Amilo Li1705.
The wireless led & power led light up and then the laptop does nothing. After 5-10 hard restarts the lights for num lock, caps lock and scroll lock flash and the system starts. Once started the slightest shake and the laptop freezes, and the whole process starts again.
Laptop is 14mths old, FSC won’t have a bar of it – strict 12mth warranty. I did open it up from the access panel and found the CPU fan had lost a screw.
Sounds like its turned into a paperweight. Really don’t know if its even worth getting it fixed.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
need some help please…
i have a Toshiba Satellite M35X. LEDs work, normal noises, but no hd activity. Seems ot be charging just fine. I tried everything up to removing the video cable… I stopped there because a lot of the screws inside are really right and getting stripped.
Taking the ram out does cause a beeping… So is this a sign that the mobo is not dead? Should I just take it to a shop?
November 18th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Jacob,
I guess it’s either bad AC adapter or bad motherboard.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Jayson Darling,
Could be loose connection somewhere inside the laptop. In cases like that I usually try reseating internal cables and reconnecting removable components (RAM, DVD drive, HDD, etc…)
November 18th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Oscar,
Can you boot the laptop to the BIOS setup menu when the hard drive is removed? Maybe it’s bad hard drive?
November 20th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I have Toshiba A135 laptop, it has suddenly stopped working, the power n charging led come up when i power on the laptop the cpu cooling fan spins and stops in few seconds and no display comes on. There is nothing on the lcd, tried disassembling it step by step but still nothing worked, is the laptop motherboard dead or is it some other problem??
November 20th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Haresh,
First of all, test your laptop with an external monitor attached to the VGA port on the laptop. If both internal and external monitors have no video, your problem could be related to:
1. Bad memory module. If you have two modules, try removing them one by one. Test the laptop with each module separately.
2. Bad motherboard.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:50 am
My Acer tablet laptop is not dead, but I’ve scanned the comments here and didn’t find anything about the problem of no longer getting video on the external monitor (but still can get video on laptop monitor). The display settings and drivers, the monitor and cable, have been checked OK. The problem seems related to the laptop VGA port. If so, is it repairable or does the motherboard need to be replaced?
Thanks for considering this problem.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
cj2600,
I did check… With an ext monitor too I think. The only noises I hear are from the CD drive and from the fan and only for the first 5-7 seconds. Tried putting a LiveCD but still no HD light. And no light on the screen at all with or w/o ext monitor. I can’t open it any further due to badly stripped screws. Any suggestions? Is it safe to say that the mobo died? Are there any mobo testing tools? Thanks for the help
“Can you boot the laptop to the BIOS setup menu when the hard drive is removed? Maybe it’s bad hard drive?”
November 25th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Oscar,
I think it’s bad motherboard. The only test you can do at home is a visual inspection. If the laptop doesn’t start you cannot run any tests.
Here’s what you can try. Remove the keyboard bezel and take a look on the motherboard. Between the video cable connector and DC jack there is a small square chip with about 10-15 pins on each side.
Turn off the laptop, press firmly on the chip and try turning the laptop on while applying pressure on the chip. Will it start? In some cases M35X fails because of poor connection between this chip and motherboard.
Take a look at this post:
How to fix dead Toshiba Satellite M35X laptop
November 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I have an ACER Aspire 4530. My laptop is working okay except that I cant see the boot sequence on my laptop monitor. It comes in an external monitor. However, in the laptop screen, once windows loads, everything becomes okay again. What can I do?
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
HP Pavilion dv9535nr
Symptoms: no power. Light around the AC plug is lit. Pressing power button causes one flash of LED by power button and the power indicators at the bottom left of the case. Press it again and nothing happens. Unplug AC & discharge power, plug back in and I can get the LEDs to flash. No fan, no noise, nothing.
Steps already taken: Tested AC & Battery, not it. Reseated RAM & checked for failure, not it. Pulled out CMOS battery and reseated it, not it. Disconnected all HDs, NICs, etc.
Can’t see any cracks or discoloring. All connections seem secure. No water damage. Motherboard gone bad, power supply, or power button board? Any help is good help, I’m at my wits end.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I’ve got a toshiba M105-S3041 laptop.
I’ve disassembled down to board level and tried the bare bones test. I get the customary power led, the “ON” led and it appears to charge the battery. Turn on the laptop…it blinks the HDD light, but HDD never spins up (HDD is good). the CDROM will look for a CD, it will spin but won’t boot. Won’t pass POST. No beeps, no video, no HDD activity. I have re-seated everything. Again, bare bones is known good memory, mboard and power button board.
The CPU fan never turns on. I’ve not seen a bad CPU fan cause a PC not to POST but am I wrong?
Of course I’m looking at a mboard replacement. Just wanted to get some feedback.
Thanks
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Asif,
Check the display properties. Make sure the laptop screen is set as a primary screen. Also, check the BIOS settings. Just in case restore BIOS to default settings.
I think it’s just wrong settings.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Mike,
I don’t think so. I believe this laptop should boot even if the cooling fan is unplugged from the motherboard.
Unplug HDD, DVD drive, keyboard. Unplug LCD screen cable from the motherboard. You need only motherboard, CPU (with heat sink and fan) and memory. Test system with an external monitor. If still nothing, most likely it’s bad memory or motherboard problem. CPU failures are not common.
If you installed new memory, apparently the problem is related to the motherboard.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Sry for messaging again, but I gave you wrong information in my previous message. The fact is when I press the power switch, the laptop gets power as the lights are on. However I cant see anything on the screen and after a few seconds the laptop restarts and the same thing again happens. The situation is same for both internal and external monitor. However on some very random occasions the laptop starts working. My model is Acer Aspire 4530. Thanks.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Had this problem….I know I sound like I know but really thing I got this one for you….O.K. first thing the story…..doing some paper work on the laptop (Gateway) went upstairs to retrive some papers …I come back and all I see is a black screen…I think its on standby but it never cuts on…..Restarted nothing…no bios no startup no wording no warning… so I thought it was the HD sent it for warrenty repair HD came back and its still doing the same thing….the only thing that work a little on both occasions were the indicator lights…and the fan..Power light on, battery light on…then the diskdrive light but thats it still black screen…..took the laptop components apart and tested…come to find out after testing it it was the RAM slot that was defective…only one of two worked and if you put the ram chip it to the non working slot “DEAD CITY MY MAN”….try
Skillz Unlimited MDA
December 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Asif,
Could be memory related problem. It’s possible that one of the modules is bad.
Remove memory modules one by one, test the laptop with each memory module separately.
December 14th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Very helpful article and lots of good comments.
However I would like to ask and if possible get an answer.
HP dv 6000 series. Less than two years old. is Hardly moved and never bossed around.
A few months ago, when booting the LED button comes on and it starts making noises looking to start up but doesnt, When forced shut down (Pressing and holding Led button) and trying again it starts normally. Kept happening all the time.
Then all of a sudden stopped working. Now the Led light is on, power and battery checked all ok. the CPU fans spins onces then silence then “restarts” itself.
No beeping sound when RAM removed, done all the checks in the article, still nothing. So now i fear the motherboard is damaged.
My question. Am i missing something? What would damage the motherboard just like that on its own?!
December 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Red,
Did you hear about HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement program? I think your laptop is in the list and you can get a free repair. Try calling HP about your problem. Let me know what happens.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
My Toshiba A105 will work only as long as it is connected to the ac power supply. As soon as I unplug it it will go off. I replaced the battery and the first time I used the battery it worked but then it stopped with the battery always showing 77% charged. I suspect it is not charging the battery or what ever switches from ac to battery is not working. any suggestions? Thanks
December 26th, 2008 at 6:48 am
One day our laptop just turned off. When we tried turning it back on it wouldn’t work at all. For some reason, when we plug the charger into it, the power light comes on as if it were going to start but it never does. And to turn the power light off each time we have to take out the battery. Any ideas of what’s wrong?
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
i have a toshiba satellite p105-s6084
when ac is plugged in and battery is in it i see ac blue light and battery blue light
i removed intel 3945abg internet card and i have 512mb of pc4200 in it dvd is in it and hard drive is in it
when i press power button all lights go out
no power
does not turn on
anyone have any answers to what i can do other than getting new motherboard
or could my power button board be bad
thanks
January 9th, 2009 at 1:42 am
dont know if others mentioned, but here’s my fix for this problem
http://imateski.blogspot.com/2.....board.html
According to the comments, this link has helped some of the folks that posted comments on your post also.
regards
Igor.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Thanks so much for referencing the HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement on this site. I was going to replace my motherboard at my expense and your information just saved me the time and cost. HP’s program is handled very professionally and courteously and it covers my out of warranty laptop. Again, thank you for posting the heads up where it was likely to be found by many people like me.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Hi
I wonder if anyone can help me, i recently changed the AC adapter on my Compaq 2100 laptop.
Having removed the old one by following instruction on numerous websites i soldered the new one in place all went well or so i thought!!!!. I put the laptop back together again and was pleased to see the power light come on when i pluged the power cable in.
My problem arose when i tried to start the laptop, the power comes on, the fan starts up, the hard drive seem to start up and the normal messages comes on the screen compaq press F2 for boot sequence etc… then when i thought everything was going well it switched itself off. i tried again but the same thing happens it seems to be after about 10 seconds….
Can anyone help…i have taken the laptop back apart and checked all the conectors but cant see anything out of order.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
My gateway laptop lights up but ther is nothing on the monitor. It made some noises beore the screen went blank. Do you think its the monitor or the video card?
January 17th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Hi,
I have a Acer Aspire 5600 series (5601 AWLMi). So the laptop is dead and when i press the power button nothing happens. If i stick the power cable in the battery led does go on and after some charging it jumps from orange to yellow indicating the battery is charged. So i dont think it has a power problem. I think the motherboard is fried so im thinking about ordering one from ebay that isnt that expensive. Okay now my question, when i receive the new motherboard, is it save to test it in the configuration on this site, meaning the mainboard out of the laptop with the cpu, cooler fan, ac power cable and an external monitor. (I have onboard video card) Or would you recommend installing everything before testing?
January 17th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
This is very very odd, im working on the exact same model laptop and it has the same problem. And im stumped also, i get external video sometimes and no video on lcd.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I have an HP Zt. When I turn on the laptop, it still working, but the all of the icon on the screen is not appeared. The mouse is still working when I move it around, but when I click it, there is no response. What can I do? Thank you
January 24th, 2009 at 7:29 am
i have a packard bell i go . it was ok then one morning i turned it on and it only powers on for a few seconds . then thurns off but a green light stays on ??
January 24th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
My friend handed me his laptop (Dell c510 or c610 – I’m not sure) for a display check. It was like old CRT monitor where the display shrink vertically to the left and down sparing black display on its right side. I’ve checked it with external CRT and its OK. The problem is I broke the inverter connector, but my fellow manage to jumper it all over.
Soon after that i tried to put things back on, but I can only get a power blink once every time I press the power button. I’ve tried to remove the battery also and got nothing. Can you help me on this? because if this thing cant turn on I guess I have to pay my failure with my money. Thanks
*sad*
January 26th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
alaiksander,
I guess this is a problem with the screen.
What if you disconnect the LCD cable from the motherboard and test the laptop just with an external monitor attached? Will it work that way?
Maybe your fellow didn’t solder the cable properly and shorted something?
January 26th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Vicky Nguyen,
This description sounds like a software related problem.
You can try this:
1. Press F8 on startup, then select “Last Known Good Configuration” and press enter. This could revert your system to the previous working state.
2. Reinstall factory software from the recovery disc. This will erase everything from the hard drive and reimage it back to factory defaults.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:55 am
just come to say thanks for laptop101.com
The laptop I told you was taken by my friend this afternoon. He was pleased because he still can use it, although he has to use an external monitor for that.
Thanks for the trick.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Very good !
my Dell laptop wont be rebooted! when i tune power on, the LED light for a moment then off compltely, sometimes 3 light together, then off, sometimes only one labled “A” flashing for a few seconds then off.
what is the reason for this problem, is it possible to fix it?
January 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
i have a laptop but working but the hard drive have password .my friend tolled me replace the semos battery then i do it but asking the password agine what i can now
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
mohammedali,
If you forgot the hard drive password, you’ll have to replace the hard drive. That’s it. Replacing the CMOS battery will not clear password from the hard drive.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hi..
Your website is brilliant for learners like me. Basically im a PC tech but know little about laptop repairs. After visiting your site i have very good confidence in me.. In fact i fixed my dell laptop which i taught the motherbord was fried but it is’t.. It happend by using your step by step analysis and found that DVD drive is the culprit..How stupid i am :p and i call myself tech..
Anyway thanks a million for your ideas and ticks and we expect more postings for you in future..
February 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Have a PCG-GRT360ZG Sony Vaio laptop. Turns on, pwr led lights up, but only intermittently does POST. Then is doesn’t POST, then it does. Your site goes through all the steps I’ve taken. The motherboard works, like I said, but intermittently does not POST. Should I just replace / refurb motherboard?
February 11th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Hi,
I have several laptop – different make, but problem appears to be the same: they power on with AC adapter and/or battery connected to them. Power light comes up and fan starts spinning, however no further actions – no screen, no boot etc. Just fan spinning and power light and nothing else. CPUs get warmer like they are doing something. Had disassembled the laptops, had checked them, but still can’t figure out where might be the damn hook. The AC adapters charge the battery for every single laptop. Tried different RAMs, CPU, w/ and w/o LCD or CRT. They simply do nothing after power switched on except fans keep spinning (or spin for a sec then restarts in next two secs) and power lights keep green.
Are these laptops appear to have dead mobos? Tnx.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
i have a toshiba a105-s2236 laptop.as soon as i plug it in i get a green power led . when u push the power button nothing happens no fan ,no screen nothing what could be wrong
February 14th, 2009 at 12:59 am
hi.. i have HP laptop its the one which the screen can rotate..
i spill water on it before and after 3 months repairing it, it work again but recently i dont know why it doesnt work.
the screen is blank but the power light is on and usually when a laptop is on, the machine inside will spin i think ( i dont know much about laptop) sorry but mine just spin for a few second and it stop. if u have the time can u please tell me what is the problem with my laptop.. thank u..
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 am
john mattingly,
Will it turn on when you push on the power button? I mean, can you see any other LEDs lighting up when you press on the power button?
There could be a few things wrong and it’s hard to tell which one is causing the problem without looking at the laptop.
Could be bad power button board, memory or even motherboard. I need more information in order to troubleshoot the problem any further.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 am
Hal,
In cases like that the first thing to check is the memory module. Try reconnecting it, replacing with another known good memory.
If new memory doesn’t fix it, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard.
From my experience, it’s either memory or motherboard. CPU failures are very rare.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Just wanna know, if the motherboard problem, what should i do? i mean what is the actual problem with the motherboard and can we fix it? (related with the laptop totaly dead).
Thank you.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I have a problem with a satellite a70 a dead laptop (is not my laptop a costumer left me to check it) , in first case the latop had no memory module, la hdd seams to be broken the connector of the right speaker was smashed and the power cable of the screen was loose only with electrical-tape
i made some tests i disassembly the laptop check with an external monitor, a new hdd and memory module, but nothing, i check the ac power adpater and seams to be ok,
i can’t find the problem, i am thinking is the motherboard is bad.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I have a HP Pavilion F500 and it does not power on at all. I checked the adapter and it is getting proper voltage. I also took it apart and tested barebone system but still no power. The power board is separate from MB but the light on the power board turns on. I’m thinking it is the motherboard.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I am using the Compaq laptop and i am facing the same problem .I think it might be the motherboard problem..
March 10th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I took apart my toshiba satillite a105 to replace the DC-IN cable. When I pluged it all back in it was taking a charge beautifully. However, my touch pad was not working. I assumed that it was something unplugged so i took it apart again and now it does not turn on at all. It still charges my battery and when I plug it in without the battery the blue light still comes on indicated it is connected to the powersupply, however when I push the power button nothing happens…any ideas.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
When I turn on my laptop, it goes to the welcome screen, right befor the login page, and it restarts, over and over, till i hold the power to autoshut it off. Help!!!!!!!!!!
March 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I have one HYUNDAI M-Life M350C laptop (notbook) which has 40Gb harddrive,
Same things are happening.
ERROR: All LED Bulps are glowing when we turn on the system. CPU cooling fan is running. But NO DISPLAY, NO BOOTING.
As instructed by you I have cleaned the MEMORY with rubber, But it is not working,
Now i feel it may be HARD DRIVE.
Suppose if it is HARD DRIVE FAILURE.
How can i recover the datas to my DESKTOP pc without going for a SERVICE CENTER.
But still the issue is not solved and getting confused to take to service center.
Advice Appreciated.
Thanking you.
March 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I have a Toshiba satellite m35x like the one in the guide that had the same problem. I tried doing everything and when i messed with the ram and then tried it on the external monitor, it started working on the monitor. Then when its about to load OS, the external monitor goes blank and it starts working on the laptop screen. Everything can function fine then. I was trying to plug in a mouse and accidentally bumped the cable from the external monitor that was plugged into the laptop. Then the laptop screen goes black and the laptop remains running. I tried rebooting the laptop without the monitor and it didn’t work. Then i tried it with the monitor and it did the same thing as last time. I touched the monitor cable to see what happened and it shut off again. I do not have a clue now what to do. I try to reset the ram and try it on the monitor and it isn’t working. I have no idea what the problem is either and i really want to fix this and be done with it. PLEASE HELP!
March 15th, 2009 at 11:27 am
i have a toshiba satellite a105 – s2061 and when i turn it on , it tries to boot but it just clicks and then tries to boot up again over and over for like 3 or 4 tries and then shuts off. i ran the batt. all the way down , and thats when it started happening. i have charged the batt. to full. still wont boot
March 19th, 2009 at 1:31 am
i tried cleaning the tracks with the eraser and also took out the dvd drive and the hard drive and nothin’. the led light up but the keyboard ain’t doin any thing i also tried the moniter and more nothin
the battery doesn’t charge but it still runs on the mains and i noticed that before this started that the screen went funny like a barcode ( like a rainbow barcode) and the cd drive does not work
ANY IDEAS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks 4 showing us all the necessary solutions needed 4 our computer
March 27th, 2009 at 1:02 am
Help Help Help
I Have a Dell Inspiron 1000 Laptop for my daughter right ! Well after an update, there is now a system/bios password. No luck from Dell, actually no luck at all. Being A+,NETWORK+, MCP, MCDST, CERTIFIED. I took the cmos battery out for weeks no help. If there are some jumper pins, like dell desktops, IT IS NOT LOCATED NOWHERE NEAR THE CMOS BATTERY. CAN ANY ONE GIVE ME ANY ASSISSTANCE AT ALL? Thanks .
March 28th, 2009 at 5:41 am
i have hitachi prius b 200 ,last week i use it but no problem after a week i open it, the power can’t on and then i try to push on for 15 second and then i push the power again laptop can operate normaly after 3 day i open it at the same problem , after on sudenly the windows shut down , and now i can’t not open it . what is the problem? if you know can send email to me for sofl this probleem. thanks you i wait your answer
March 28th, 2009 at 5:46 am
dear friend, i want to get the service manual book of hitachi prius b 200, if you have can send email to me thaks
March 31st, 2009 at 10:37 pm
bobby,
I’m not familiar with that particular laptop but I would suggest to check the memory module first. Could be bad memory module.
Do you know if there are two memory modules installed into your laptop? Try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each RAM module separately? Can you make it work when only one module is installed?
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am
My Compaq Presario C500 touch pad does not wok. Device manager does not recognize that it is there. Any ideas
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
Thanks a bunch i have a sony vaio vgn-ar70b and it was not starting up i tryed taking a ram module out and it now works fine, thanks a bunch.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
JL,
Check the BIOS menu. Maybe the internal pointing device (touch pad) is disabled in the BIOS?
April 17th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Toshiba MX35 S109. Purchased this laptop broke down, as is, with no power. Seen the rear positive pin loose on the jack, cleaned and resolderd all contacts on the jack. System now powers on, all power leds, and battery charge light. Battery does charge. Fan kicks in, appears to boot, but nothing on screen. Have checked and gave the “lid closed” pin a few pushes thinking it might be stuck. If I leave it powered on this way, approx 15-20 minutes later it finally boots, with post screen. As if I just powered, or turn it on. I’ve swapped out the memory, swap the mem slots, removed cdrom, battery, hardrive, modem. Also read the posts on the video chip, and something directly behind the power jack, pushed down on these thinking they could be loose, but no change in boot behavior. Seems as if once it warms up, it powers on with video screen display. If it sits cold, nothing for 20 minutes. Or as if it’s coming out of a “sleep mode” or something. I haven’t taken the LCD panel apart as of yet. Any idea folks?
April 19th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Don,
Your description sounds like a problem with the motherboard. There is not much you can do besides replacing the motherboard.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Hi,
I have a Asus M6B00N that seems dead. Power light is on but no HDD or screen activity. After being left off for a couple of months, powered up to HDD CHDSK before shutting down again when shortly into it.
Tested with different HDD and no BATTERY, same.
Would appreciate any suggestions..
Regards,
Trevor
April 21st, 2009 at 12:02 am
I have toshiba satellite M100 222, without AC power supply my laptop starts to work after four or five time resetting while it shows black screen, but while it is working i should play some video or music cause if i do not laptop freeze itself. Could somebody help me?
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:48 am
sir i have hp laptop compaqnc6000. for the last few days i m facing power related problem. when press the power button, two out of three blink indicators( for bluetooth and charging indicator) gets on for few seconds and then put off, but the main indicator for power on do not get on and system remains dead. what is the problem and its solution.?
April 27th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
shahzad,
It’s hard to tell what is wrong. Could be a faulty part, could be a connection related issue.
Here’s what I do in cases like that. I minimize the laptop to a bare bone system and leave only a few key components: motherboard, CPU with the cooling module, memory. Try turning it on this way. If the system starts, I start adding parts one by one and test the laptop after each step.
If the system doesn’t start and you still having the same issue, apparently it’s related to the motherboard.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Hi my Acer laptop is dead. It suddenly shut off, then when i connect the power, the light in the charger have a steady (green) light. then when i connect it to the laptop, i see the (green) light blinks. I cannot turn it on, no power on the laptop, nor not charging. The battery also don’t function. No power. Hope you could help me.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Lain,
From your description it’s hard to guess what could be wrong. Could be just a faulty AC adapter, a problem with the DC-IN power jack or bad motherboard.
You’ll have to find another known good AC adapter and test the laptop. If the problem still exists, I would say it’s a bad motherboard.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:19 am
i have hp laptop compaqnc6000. for the last few days i m facing power related problem. when press the power button, two out of three blink indicators( for bluetooth and charging indicator) gets on for few seconds and then put off, but the main indicator for power on do not get on and system remains dead. what is the problem and its solution.?
This is a common problem with HP NC6000, you could try this to confirm a motherboard problem. Press quite hard on the silver strip bellow the right hinge cover and switch on the laptop if it powers up this would indicate that a chip on the motherboard needs the solder reflowing. This chip is what regulates the voltage to the CPU. Another test would involve removing the CPU then power on the laptop, you should get the same two indicators for a few seconds then the laptop will shut down this will show the CPU is not getting the correct voltage when its in the laptop.
May 1st, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Hi, my Dell Latitude C840 will not boot. When I press the power button the indicator lights come on (but not the display)for about 5 seconds and then the lights go off. But if I hold down the f10, f11, or f12 key and press and hold the power button the fan runs and DVD drive runs but the laptop still will not boot up. When that happens I have to unplug the laptop and remove the battery to get the laptop to shut off. Do you have any idea why my laptop will not boot up?
May 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Hi there I’ve got a similar problem but I’ve managed to turn it on somehow but the fans are not working everything used to work fine but eventually it switches off cause of overheating and when I turned it on nothing on the screen however all the leds work fine as well as the hard drive and the dvd but nothing happens an there are no fans at all.
My laptop is CLEVO D470V any ideas.
Thanks in advance.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am
my dell laptop wont come up after restarting, it turns self on and off without booting at all.
May 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Hi I need help with my dell inspiron 1501. Its dead, when I push the power button the power light glows for a sec then it goes dark and same thing happens when I press the home button and their is no noise or any thing from it and the screen is black the hole time. How can I fix it…. I don’t think the adapter is the problem because the adapter light glows when its pluged. I think and hope it might be the battery but I dont have a way of testing it and I was thinking if its ok to just plug the laptop to the outlet with out the battery… would that be ok or do i have to have the battery in the laptop to convert the power so it can use it…. please help what can i do other then buy new laptop or have some one do some thing simple as changing the battery for like $50-$100….. PLEASE HELP
May 17th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Hello friend,
I have a Toshiba Sattelite A210for many years.
Recently when I turn on, I hear louder than normally noise coming from the bottom of the laptop, it doesn’t boot up. SOmetime the noise becomes hugh and I have to switch off the laptop.
I tried to open the bottom cover but unsuccessful even I did unscrew all I could see/reach.
I suspect the fan(s) are overheat and make so much noise.
Could you please show me how to repair or at least open the bottom cover?
Many thanks,
Sam
May 17th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Sam,
It’s possible the noise is coming from the hard drive, not the fan. Here’s what you can try. Remove the hard drive and turn on the laptop. Do you still hear the same noise? Can you boot the laptop to Toshiba logo on the screen?
May 18th, 2009 at 4:49 am
I have a HP laptop and when I turn it on the power light comes on but it does not start up. There is no CPU activity. When a different CPU is connected it still does noy start up. Help me Please
May 18th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Karen Merchant,
First thing to do – check the memory. Try reconnecting memory modules. Do you have two memory modules installed? Try removing them one by one. Test the laptop with each memory module separately. Will it start when only one module is installed?
May 24th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I would like to thank cj2600 who changed everything for me!! I’ve been trying to get at the bottom of my laptop situation for days. I’d been to the hp website, checked all sorts of forums and how-to pages – and could NOT figure out why the laptop was dead(ish). I’ve reseated the memory, cleared the capacitor, investigated under every screw-on cover. Just yesterday I was prying off the upper faceplate to look at the screen connections.
It took me a few days to get through this huge page, but when I finally got to this message it was like EUKEKA! I checked the warranty, called HP and they are sending a box to pick up my bad laptop. AND, evidently the warranty period for me is ending in one week!!
what’s crazy is that I was on the HP tech support page for this laptop and did not see anything about this problem or warranty “enhancement”.
so thank you cj – and thank you Laptop Repair Guy – you saved me hundreds of dollars and some valuable pieces of my sanity!!
ellen
ps – here’s cj’s original post…
cj2600 Says:
December 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Red,
“HP dv 6000 series. Less than two years old. is Hardly moved and never bossed around.
A few months ago, when booting the LED button comes on and it starts making noises looking to start up but doesnt, When forced shut down (Pressing and holding Led button) and trying again it starts normally. Kept happening all the time.”
Did you hear about HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement program? I think your laptop is in the list and you can get a free repair. Try calling HP about your problem. Let me know what happens.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I have a Dell Inspiron 3000.
When I plug in the power adapter the green light comes on
for 1 sec. The display flashes with all symbols a few times
then nothing. No screen activity at all or cpu, fan.
If I take out the battery and same results then what /
Help
May 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Have u considered installing a new BIOS chip. It might have been infected by a virus. Saying that though the motherboard was probably fried. U should also take out the CPU, see if there are burn marks which would indicate it was fried. It could also be the onboard graphics card. If any of you can’t get a screen on ur desktop PC, I think u should try using the CMOS jumper. It sometimes works. Also blow the dust out of memory slots and all slots.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Hi,
I have a Thinkpad T42. One year ago it started frequent blue screen and reboots whenever it was tightly touched. I figured out that the problem was with the heat sink being too much tightly fastened on the CPU (I had fasten that myself once when cleaning the fan).
When I made the heat sink a little bit looser, it went OK.
Now after one year I am facing similar kind of problem. The laptop doesn’t start sometimes; it doesn’t even bring up the IBM logo. In cases when it successfully boots up, it is always possible that it stop working at any moment. It may happen sooner or later between 1 min to hours after boot.
When the laptop stops working, kind of noise is seen on the LCD as if there is a mobile phone beside a monitor. And when I push the heat sink, the noise disappears but the laptop stays freeze and I have to turn it off and on again.
I have removed RAM, HDD, DVD but still the problem exists.
Could you help me out of the problem please?
Sobhan
June 4th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I have a toshiba satellite m65 that has been having touch pad, cursor, and mouse problems. My usb ports starting shutting down when using a wireless mouse, then computer started freezing up when working hard (several windows open with video running). Downward pressure on the keyboard worked for a while to unfreeze the laptop, but progressively getting worse. It turns on now and fan runs for a couple of seconds, but will not boot up. Any suggestions?
June 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
rod,
That sounds like a problem with the motherboard to me. Also, it’s possible that one of the memory slots is bad. Try removing memory modules one by one and start the laptop with each module separately. Can you start the laptop with only one memory module installed?
June 15th, 2009 at 4:20 am
i have got a compaq armada e 500 .i want to install windows operating system but it doesnt want to boot from cd and install the operating system. it keeps telling me… no disk or non disk error please help me solve the problem
June 24th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Hi All,
I need your help….Please…
I have an IBM Thinkpad R51……..It’s a 4 years old laptop and is dead right now…….The situation is somewhat similar to the “1st case” described above..The only difference is, when i connect the power cord the battery LED flashes for 3 seconds and then stays on……however, pressing the power ON button does nothing……..absolutely dead….
The battery was dead from 6 months and i running it on power supply…….with the battery in the laptop…..when i pull the power cable out, the laptop used to turn OFF immediately….
last week, it didn’t power ON even when the power cable was connected….i ordered a new battery – no use…….i removed the battery and tried connecting the power cable and starting the laptop – no use…….i removed HDD, CDD, RAM and tried starting – no use……….
it cannot be the DC power jack, as the battery glows when the power cable is connected…..
could you please help me out???? thanks in advance..
Syed.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I have a Toshiba Protege R100 laptop that will not boot up. The Power and Battery LEDs come on but no hard drive light and the hard drive does not spin up. There is a black screen and the laptop does not boot up. I have checked the hard drive in another R100 and it works fine. I have removed the battery and the memory but the laptop still will not boot, no beeps either. Any help would be appreciated….Thanks
June 27th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Emma McClarry,
Have you tried replacing the memory module with a known good module? By the way, very few laptops give you a beep error when there is no memory installed.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Syed,
I don’t remember this model off the top of my head. Is it normal for the battery LED flash on the startup? Did it flash before the laptop failed?
In IBM laptops the power button is a part of the keyboard. Maybe the power button is bad?
Can you remove the keyboard and try reconnecting the keyboard cable to the motherboard. Maybe the connection got oxidized and the keyboard cable is not making good connection with the motherboard. I would try reconnecting the keyboard cable first.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:24 am
I have a Gateway SA1 laptop and the LCD went black after I turned it off and back on again. I reseated the battery and it came back on. Stayed on and failed again after I powered it off. Now it wont turn on anymore…..DVD drive, HDD and all lights/fan are ok. I pulled memory, DVD, HDD, inverter and video cable from LCD…cant find video cable to laptop connector as it must be under the media panel…..any suggestions?
June 28th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Sorry I meant a Gateway M-6750
June 28th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
This is the type of article I was looking for… Wanted to test a mobo outside the casing. This gives me visuals on how to do it. Thanks!
Just had a couple of questions on why a motherboard would fail and if the recent purchases of a battery / power supply would’ve caused its demise.
Recent purchases (the laptop was running fine, without any problems before I replaced). Two weeks later, I have these problems, and the laptop dies….
I replaced both the battery and the power supply. The power supply was 3.25A (this laptop needed a 4.5A p/s model) and 18.5 (this laptop needed a 19.0)
Here’s what mine did when I had it all assembled:
Turn on power, fan, lights come on, then after 5 seconds, it shuts right off. No POST, or ability to get into the cmos settings.
Took out the memory, and other easily removable externals. No change. So, I dismantled the entire laptop (an NX9420), thinking it’s probably the motherboard (wanted to test it out of the casing, and this article helps me out before I bought another board) getting fried by the underperforming power supply… Is the p/s the culprit, and why would it be so? Would it be the battery?
Or after 2.5 years, would a motherboard fail just like that?
Appreciate any input.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Sjam,
I would really recommend using the right type of the power adapter. If the laptop requires 19 volts, you must use 19 volts. The amperage should be the same or higher.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Jason,
Have you tried removing memory modules one by one? It’s possible that one of them is faulty.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:49 am
I have a Toshiba A60 laptop that will not boot up. The Power and Battery LEDs come on but hard drive light is on only for a fraction of seconds . There is a black screen and the laptop does not boot up. Although i didn’t check it i am sure that the hard disc doesn’t fail.This all was acused when i tried to extend a ram while the batery is in the laptop and this might have disabled the original RAM which is integrated in the board .Is there any solution to enable the dead ram in the board? Any sugetion would be appreciated…
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I have a Toshiba Satelite A105-S4234 with, 1.5gig memory and a 250 G hdd…about 2.5 years old.
When I push the on button, the power light comes on, but that is it….does not access the hd, the hd inidcator light does not repsond at all when the on button is pressed….jsut sits there with a black screen….it will access or spin the cd/dvd drive if there is a disk in it.
I have searched invista site and elsewhere but have not found this particular problem listed or a fix….or exactly how to get to the hd to try and salvage the data if the computer is caput. Do you know where I might find instructions to remove hd on this particular computer?
THe last week before this total failure, I had a number of times the computer would be fine and suddenly a blue screen would flash and the computer would reboot before I could read it. The last 2 times it blue screened if I moved the computer physically. If I picked it up from the floor or desk it would also go blue screen and reboot.
Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks,
Galen
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:52 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite SP10, on boot up it quickly showed the boot up screen then the screen went black. The small hard drive light and cd drive lights were flashing yet still no screen. I decided to format the maching using the manufacturers installation discs and all was going well, I could see the screen clearly and as the installation got to 25 percent the screen suddenly froze along with the cd light and hard drive light. It didnt respond to ctrl,alt.delete so I hit the power off button. When I have tried to turn it on since I it takes about 10 hits on the power button before it responds yet the screen still goes black and the machine seems to hang in limbo.
I realise the format wasnt completed but why would the whole machine just go to sleep like this. It had a new hard drive installed 12 months ago and showed no signs of illness before it fell into this coma,
Should I just take it off life support and throw it in the bin?
July 8th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
i have a ibm laptop whic is not showing dislay,
the leds are working as soon as i press the power button but there is no display, can you help out .
July 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hi,
I have an HP pavillon dv6000 and when I plug the power jack , it’s blue led on power jack goes on; when I push the power on button the laptop tries to boot, all the leds lit one second and go off !
July 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Funny thing is I’m currently working on the same laptop you have in your pics. And I’m also under the impression the MB is dead. In my case the fan and hdd spin up for about 5 seconds and then shut off, but the power light stays on. I can’t even shut it down completely buy holding down the power button. Why’s even funnier, I already had this problem about a year ago which I solved by getting a MB on eBay.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Hoping some friendly soul can help me!
I have a 6 year old laptop – a HP ze4420ca. I figured it would die eventually. Anyway 2 weeks ago it wouldn’t start up – the lights came on and it whirred (revving up and down like a car engine) but that’s it. I took it in to get it looked at and when I went to show them what was happening, it started up!!! So I bought an external hard drive and quickly started copying my files off of it. I stupidly also had my camera plugged into the USB port and after an hour the whole thing shut down completely (kind of like a short circut maybe?). Now it won’t turn on at all – no lights, no sound, NOTHING. (Actually the LED light was flashing for a few minutes before it too went off).
I would love some ideas on what to try next – taking the battery out, or the memory, or freezing the thing? Does it sound like the Motherboard has finally died? I’m ok with that but I’d love to get some files off it if possible (but I’m hesitant to pay £500 for data recovery). Thoughts welcome, thanks in advance!
July 15th, 2009 at 7:51 am
My laptop power light comes on for about 3 seconds then off. I replaced a power cord about 3 months ago. I will try some of the things that I have read on your site when I get home today.
Thanks fro having a place to ask quetions.
Tina
July 18th, 2009 at 9:06 am
i am working on a HP Pavilion ze4800, when i turn on, the lights and the fan turns of, a second before, turns off, and do it again until i quit the power cable and battery, before find this site, i did all the tests showed here, but nothing, now i know that the mainboard is death….. sorry for me because i have to buy a new one…..
regards my friends and thanks for this site….
July 18th, 2009 at 9:08 am
“when i turn on, the lights and the fan turns ON”, sorry a little finger mistake….
July 20th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
You know, more than half of the issues on here that result in “bad motherboard” is incorrect. The toshiba above looks to be an M30X or M35X series, these are notorious for no video on bootup. The Northbridge separates from the board. Easy fix with a reflow tool. Computers that are working and say power is connected is a dc jack problem. HP DV2000/DV6000/DV9000’s with powering on but no video, or sudden loss of WIFI, or locking up and reboots, those are also northbridge separation problems. Also can be fixed with a reflow tool. Unless your laptop has had lightening damage or liquid damage, replacing motherboard isn’t necessary. Every other issue with motherboard is completely repairable.
July 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
JonJ,
Sure it’s repairable if you have the tool and know what you are doing. How many people know how to use the reflow tool?
Maybe you can help us and create an easy to follow guide for fixing the motherboard? Can you?
July 25th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
good day
i ve got two laptops wwitha fault.the first one is a futjitsu siemens.each time i switch it on,it comes on,and goes off.am sure it is charging.pls wat can be the problem.
Secondly,i ve an acer laptop dat does not display ,but it displays once in a while and when it does and i go to bios,it hangs and stops responding.when i plug it to an external monitor it shows at time and sumtimes it does not. your swift reply wld be appreciated
Thanks
August 1st, 2009 at 4:25 am
how can i upgrade video card on my laptop?
August 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Hi friends …
I have a Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV425. My problem is similar to the one being discussed in this post: When I press on the power button, the laptop starts, the LEDs work properly but noting appears on the screen. I hear two beeps and immediately cooling fan stops but the LEDs continue on, then I have to turn off the computer.
I followed step by step cj2600´s instructions: I used an external monitor, change the memory for good one, disconnect each of the components (DVD, modem card, wi fi card, keyboard) and cables (mousepad, multimedia buttons, etc.), trying to turn on the computer in each case, but nothing. Finally, I disassembled my laptop completely, connect the motherboard to an external monitor and power supply, but when I press the power button, it showed the same problem.
My motherboard has a video card Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT and an Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz I believe the problem is on the motherboard or the video card, What another test can I do?
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Dead motherboard? Yea, that’s why I’m here, I was hoping to get some board level trouble shooting info. I didn’t know it was gonna be this basic common sense stuff. Let me know if you ever get to the hardcore stuff. Thanks.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:32 am
my laptop is not working i connect the dc jack the power led was blinking(on and off each second) and i saw the mother board one 14 pin ic is burnd i connot identify the ic part details. so please help to wack up my laptop. (MY LAPTOP DETAIS compaq armada E500 PENTI III )
August 5th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
i have a gateway laptop that will not power up i have took the motherboard out and tested the jack and there is 19v i have also tested the prongs where the battery goes and they are also getting power i tried the multi metre on the power switch and seems to be dead there are 4 prongs on the power switch i put the meter on these 4 prongs and got nothing is this the wright way to test the switch and can i buy pass the switch to see if it will start up
i now have a packard bell with the same problems sureley this cannot be right could you point me in the right direction to get them up and running many thanx
August 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
billy,
You’ll have to test the power switch for continuity. Make sure the laptop is powered down. Set your multimeter to make noise when the circuit is closed.
Connect the multimeter probes to the prongs on the switch and press on the button. If the multimeter makes noise when you press on the button, most likely the button is working fine.
Do you get any activity from the laptop when you press on the power button at all? The hard drive noise, DVD drive light, etc..?
Do you know if the power switch button is located on a separate board or it’s on the motherboard?
Try replacing the power switch board if it’s a separate board, shouldn’t be very expensive.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
pradeep,
Sorry, cannot help you. I don’t work on the component level. In cases like that I just replace the whole motherboard.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
LuisVen,
Unfortunately, there is no much further testing you can do. It’s either bad motherboard or video card and at this point you’ll have to guess.
I think it’s bad video card because you are getting beeps. When you have a bad motherboard, usually it doesn’t give you any error messages.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
gorio,
It depends on the laptop model. Most laptops have integrated video card, it’s when the video card is a part of the motherboard. If that’s the case the video card cannot be removed.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I have Sony SZ1 XP/C, to which the (LED) screen went dim, but the image was visible. So I though it’s either inverter board or backlight or some of the cables there. I opened the top part of the laptop, looked a bit, could not figure out much and closed it.
After this, it went entirely dead. I have no idea what I could have broke, I don’t recall scratching something. Any ideas what could have gone wrong, what to check..?
August 17th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Amazing blog…thank you so much. I was breaking my head over my laptop to figure out which part was causing the problem. Followed your steps and found it was the memory.
Thanks Again
August 18th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I have laptop toshiba L-310, when me install bios,suddenly hang,and its not responding, then I be awaiting so much time doesn’t desist also, then I turn off by arrest;detaining knob power, after off. I tried turns on again. but instead cannot live again. OMG! only just led-charger lamp of which able to blink-blink when charger. what its the solution ? Please help me…
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Your photo at “http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2008/06/14/laptop-dead-troubleshoot-the-problem/” shows a single wire with a ring lug coming out of the middle of the LCD cable. Where is the ring lug supposed to go?
August 24th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Thanks much my dear! It’s so kind of you! I have had a headache for three or so weeks trying to fix a friend’s Toshiba Satellite laptop. I have been using your ideas. Let me try the module, no DVD…, bare motherboard and see where I end up. I’ve disassembled the entire thing.
Your efforts aren’t wasted but rather appreciated to a degree not enough words could express.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Fantastic blog!
I had acer aspire 4520 laptop which stopped suddenly giving black and white lines blinking on the LCD screen; i pushed the poweron button to turn it off. after a while when i pushed again the power button there was no sign of any ting except the power lid lights up when the laptop is charged. Is there any problem with the motherboard? can it be repaired? or I have to replace the motherboard? Please Help! Thank you again for the blog
August 26th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Joshua,
It’s hart to tell what’s going on. First of all, I would check memory modules. It’s possible that one of them failed. Remove memory modules one by one and test the laptop with each module separately. Does it help?
If not, probably you have a failed video card. In most modern laptops the video card is integrated into the motherboard and cannot be replaced. In this case you have to replace the entire motherboard.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Matt,
Nowhere! It just routed with the main cable but not connected to anything.
August 29th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I have a hp laptop. it is start sucessfully but after 5 min. it become hang but when i press laptop body near mouse it run again. whats i do ??
September 1st, 2009 at 11:30 pm
i have toshiba sattellite m100 laptop the right click button automatically & continuosly operates enabling us to work smoothly
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:33 am
My laptop is toshiba L30, when i press the power button the power LED turns on then immediately goes off, I checked the power cables, the power cable that connected to the mother board is ok, but i did not check the actual DC power adapter output, please help me, its almost dead, i want it back.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I have IBM Thinkpad R52 the problem no power in laptop, adopteris ok , jack is ok give me solution.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:23 am
I have a Sony Vaio laptop VGN-S5HP/B.
When I press the power button, the power and battery LEDs flash then go off. The WLAN light flash as well.The computer won’t start then…
I have removed the battery and tried with the adapter only but the same occurs. I even changed th RAM but nothing works.
Any help is appreciated
September 14th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
if the battery led is blinking but the laptop does not start? what can be?
September 15th, 2009 at 3:52 am
I have a system dat water powd on d motherboad,wht can i do?
September 17th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Great post. I did exactly what you said. I have a Compaq F730 and the wireless card quit working. Then the video went out a day later. Bought a new mboard. New board, when stripped down to power, power button, CPU/heatsink and mobo, shows power at the LEDs for charging. However, when the power is pressed, turns on for about a second, but not long enough to post BIOS. Since I’m getting power lights at the battery, can I assume the power inverter is okay? Don’t have the old board, had to exchange it for new one.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
James,
Do you mean the AC power adapter? It still could be bad even though the battery light is on. It’s possible that the AC adapter doesn’t provide enough power.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Qayyum,
Sorry, I’m trying really hard but I cannot understand the question.
Maybe someone can translate for me, please?
September 20th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Paulo Cezar,
I’m not sure if the blinking battery LED is normal for your laptop or not. Is it blinking because the battery is charging?
September 20th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Ogwal Boniface,
Here’s my guess. It’s possible that you have a faulty AC adapter and because of that the laptop will not start. Can you test the laptop with another adapter?
If the AC adapter is OK then your description sounds like a problem with the motherboard.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:12 am
Laptop does not start. Power/battery charger light is on, however when I press the start/power up button, nothing happens.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
al,
Check memory modules, try reconnecting them, removing one by one. It’s possible that your problem is related to the memory failure.
October 5th, 2009 at 7:51 am
i’m very impress on ur website instructing people how to repair laptops and other.
i will be glad to receive ur mail and other things that we help me to build myself.
Lawrence O Ebare
October 6th, 2009 at 8:50 am
So I have this laptop, I have replaced the DC power, then the motherboard and lastly the power pack. It worked with the new power pack for about an hour then died again. Plugged in the old power pack worked for a couple hours then I shutdown but when I went to reboot, nada. The only other thing I can tell you is the battery is completly juiced so it only runs on the power adapter. Any thoughts other then a sledge hammer.
Thank,
Tom
October 12th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
how do i find ram in my laptop it is a prostar ive changed it in a desktop
October 12th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I can’t figure out what is wrong with mine, no power when power button is pressed but the charger light still comes on when connected to ac charger or battery.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Jon,
The first think to check is the memory module:
1. Try reseating the memory module.
2. Try removing memory modules one by one if you have two installed.
3. Try installing another memory.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
john weber,
I’m not familiar with your laptop but you can search for RAM modules in the following places:
1. On the bottom of the laptop (should be RAM cover).
2. Under the keyboard.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Reseating the ram did not work, If the motherboard is fried would it still recieve power and show you that the ac adaptor is connected?
October 14th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Jon,
Yep. I’ve seen hundreds of motherboards failed this way. You plug the AC adapter, the light comes on and nothing else.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Hi all. I have ASUS A2500H notebook.
The error is: When turn on, just the “ASUS” logo can see. No booting, and I can not enter the BIOS.
I try another HDD, RAM, DVD, but its no help me.
What is problem? What the solution? Thanks.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:18 am
I can help you but I am in Davao City. That is motherboard problem. But no need to change Mobo. You can contact me through skype id: carl.gna
October 29th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
hanka,
Sounds like a problem with the motherboard.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:50 am
The same problem goes to me but much more worst no boot,no bios and the screen totally blank but it start like normal lptp,i have asusA3000… give some advise please,. =)
November 9th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Junai,
You said the laptop will not boot and at the same time starts like normal laptop. What do you mean?
November 10th, 2009 at 4:15 am
my mistake,..it boot as usuall,the only thing is nothing appear on screen, =)totally blank… hardisk is working,and when using xternal lcd screen everything work normally.. i can see thus asus logo,windows n log into my user account.hehee.. =).
November 10th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Junai,
The laptop works with the external monitor and it tells me that your video card and motherboard functioning properly.
If nothing appears on the laptop screen, I mean it’s completely black and blank without any backlight, it’s possible that your problem is related to the video cable.
First of all, try reconnecting the video cable. Maybe it’s not making good connection with the motherboard (or video card) anymore. I’ve seen failures like that before. So, try reconnecting the cable first.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I was installing windows 7 rc2 that i got from Microsoft when i found i had a problem with my hard drive. I aborted install and tried to shut down computer, i had to manually remove battery and power lead. When i reconnected everything the computer would not start up again. I also replaced hard drive but still no joy.
My computer is an ASUS X50VL with F5VL motherboard.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
steveg,
Unplug the power adapter, remove the battery. Press on the power button and hold it down for a minute. Now connect the AC adapter and try turning it on again.
Is it completely dead or the laptop starts but shows no video?
November 14th, 2009 at 3:07 am
It is completely dead, no lights or anything.
ASUS will not help me either. They said i should not have installed Windows 7 at all.
I think i should have left the 120GB hard drive in as Windows 7 worked a dream, but i wanted to use a larger hard drive. Thats when the problem occured.
Hard drive size is not an issue as i had a 500GB hard drive with Windows Media.
I tried what you said but still no joy.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
steveg,
I really doubt that you problem is related to the hard drive replacement or Windows installation. I think it’s just a coincidence.
Can you test the AC power adapter? If the laptop is completely dead and there are no LED lights, it looks like the motherboard is not getting any power at all.
Test your adapter or test the laptop with another known good adapter.
November 14th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
carlos, would you please contact me at chuckbowersjunkmail AT frontiernet DOT net? I think I have the cited MoBo problem, and need your help. Cant access you thru skype
November 14th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Checked adaptor on spare laptop, adaptor works fine.
Connected a known good adaptor and still nothing.
Removed battery and checked with Multi-meter and found power going to battery.
Checked for voltage on motherboard at a known SAFE location (reset button) found power. Removed battery and adaptor and tested reset button with Multi-meter for faults but none found, reset button working correctly. When reset button pressed with power to computer, the power was cut and reconnected when reset button was released.
Tested memory on spare laptop, memory works fine.
Tested DVD Rom on spare laptop no problems there.
320GB hard drive has MAJOR issues, returning to Samsung for replacement as its only 3 months old.
I am beginning to think that at some point the Bios has somehow been corrupted, but dont ask me how suffice to say it was not me. The reason i say that is because in the past when i was new to computers i incorrectly flashed a bios on of all things another ASUS laptop and found to my peril that i had screwed the computer completely. I now leave flashing to the experts, if they screw it up they fix it at there cost not mine.
Looks like i am going to have to replace motherboard after all.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
steveg,
Looks like you know what you are doing and unfortunately, it does sound like a problem with the motherboard.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Thanks for trying to help, i suspected all along that motherboard may need replacing, but hoped someone out there might have known a way to restart it.
I will check back here over the next few days just in case someone posts a possible solution. Only thing not checked out yet is the Processor, going to check that out. Just a hunch but somehow i dont think thats the problem, but one never knows.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
steveg,
Maybe you should try disconnecting the CMOS battery from the motherboard for a while. Who knows, it might help. Not likely but possible.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Removing the CMOS battery was the second thing i tried, removed it for 12 hours.
After i tried every thing i knew about i surfed the net on another computer and found this site, and crossed my fingers and toes.