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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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 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 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 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks 4 showing us all the necessary solutions needed 4 our computer
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 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 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 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 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 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.