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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December 2nd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I’ve been working on a hp pavillon 9035nr notebook which started blue screening on me. I’ve ran the recovery dvd’s to come to missing files during the setup. I’ve tried to reboot in safe mode after restore and get the error.If i boot in normal the blue screen. I’ve hooked a external crt monitor to notebook same results so lcd screen is good. I have an 80 gig hard drive and one 20 gig which used to be 80 gig. I notice weird characters at boot something like for example say it said to like hit t@is ke^ almost like writing in macros or another language. I tend to think this is a bios problem and often wonder if is something with the video but cant put finger on it. Any help from someone would be great that has seen this before.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
my laptop is having almost same sort of problem.
it is hp dv5, when i power it on, the laptop turns on and displays the hp monogram but after that, there is no further processing.
it just halts at the monogram screen and doesn’t load the windows.
what can be the problem?
i have removed the hdd and reconnected it but still no progress.
i have also removed and replaced the cmos battery but still no luck.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Memory can be a problem because as soon as you turn on any computer the video rom bios address is copied into a set memory address before initialising same as the bootable partition a55 hex.That blinking little cursor tells you that this first procedure was sucessful.Also for this type of problem it can also be related to the laptop trying to boot from a flat battery the smart chip in these batteries is sometimes not so smart.Voltage regulators on the board can also be a cause.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Thank you thank you! Who could know the memory sitting well would cause a laptop to look like it had lost the motherboard!!
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.
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 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 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 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 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