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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July 15th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
i read what u do in case of no vidieo and u finally say motherboard dead,but i want to know how can i solve this problem i have every tools of laptop repairing
July 9th, 2010 at 4:50 am
You saved my day. Thank you very much!
July 1st, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Hi –
I’ve got a 10 year old Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop that I dropped several months ago. The screen gets blurry alot, especially as my wrists are resting on the front of it while I type. Little dots and dashes appear and sometimes whole columns of ‘|’ appear. Seems to vary with the pressure of my wrists on front of the laptop. If I leave the laptop on for a long time the monitor appears to be fine. But when pressure is applied as I type the garbage returns. Refreshing the screen clears it up sometime.
How do I troubleshoot this. Almost seems like something’s loose or barely connected. Thanks
June 26th, 2010 at 12:05 am
I have a same problem as Ar.RAJESH KUMAR does and same model. It just happen last night. I unplugged battery and power over night. This morning was working then I turn it off. Same problem again. I de-assembling the whole thing, then put them back together. It works then I turn it again same old story…
Did anyone know what’s going, how to fix it?
June 25th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Gosh, I hope I didn’t fry it or else Im in a deep shit. Is the memory module the RAM itself? Sorry for these noob questions but I really need to fix it. Just to add something about what’s going on. I just thought you should know this.. The laptop sometimes turns on properly but I can’t really see a thing on the LCD even on an external monitor. Isn’t that a problem with it’s graphic card or video card on the board? I read some articles about it and it also seems that my video card is borken based on what’s going on. The thing is it takes me a couple of restarts then it will boot properly. I haven’t tried what you said about taking the pieces off the board but I will.
Cheers,
June 25th, 2010 at 12:34 am
Mike,
I hope you didn’t fry the motherboard.
First of all, make sure the memory module is seated correctly (if you have it installed).
Remove the external memory module and test the laptop without it (there is some RAM soldered to the motherboard).
Minimize the laptop as much as you can. All you need is motherboard (again, it has onboard RAM) and CPU. If you still cannot get image on the internal or external screens, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:11 am
sam,
1. Test memory.
2. Test hard drive.
If both test fine, try reinstalling Windows from scratch.
Can you boot in Safe Mode? If yes, try using System Restore and revert Windows back to the time when it was working fine.
June 24th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
my laptop isn’t dead, but it can’t successfully load windows, on boot it shows blue screen and restarts, please what do you think is the problem
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:55 am
Hi! Just by reading your instructions you seem know almost everything about Toshiba laptops. I’m just wondering if you can help me with my problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite A75-S231 laptop and it’s been working fine till the last 3 months. Originally the problem was it’s shutting down by itself randomly. I’ve done a couple of researches on the net till I had the chance to see what we have on this site. I must say that you all are pros! Anyway, I found out that I have to clean the heat sink and I must tell it resolved the problem and it’s been fine for 2 months. Lately, about 2 or 3 weeks ago it’s doing the same thing, it’s shutting down by it self randomly. The new thing about it is it doesn’t overheat like what it was doing when I had the problem with my heat sink. So I’ve done a research on this site till I got something like having a problem with the DC Jack and believe me it really is the problem. I’ve re soldered the stupid dc jack coz that’s where the issue is. I decided to do the Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround and decided to have a small cord wiggling at the back of my laptop to make sure that it won’t happen again. At first I was having problems turning it on coz it wont turn on until I found out that some leads were actually sticking with my laptop’s metal case. So I had to re solder that put it all back and guess what it powered on. BUT! my LCD won’t display a thing! It’s all black! When I turn the laptop on the fan spins but after 3-5 seconds the fan stops and it wont do anything as if it doesn’t wanna boot properly, it wont also display a thing on the LCD. Again I’ve done some research and found something about using an external monitor to test the LCD but still it wont display anything on the LCD! Apart from that the fan also stops in 4-5 seconds after I turned it on. Based on what your post says I could have a problem with my RAM but I don’t wanna a new one till I find out if I really need to buy a new one.
June 13th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Hi.. dear sir I have a 7year old laptop of hp Compaq(Presario v 1000)I am facing very different kind of problume.My laptop did not start by pressing off/on button at one time- to start the laptop I have to press off/on button at list 15 to 20 times. while I am pressing off-on button- every time it shows all the light blinking and sound of fan, sound of DVD start run but did not start, then some time it get started. but if some time it does not get start I use a very funny trick by heating the laptop base/bottom for 20 second over oven or heater……..after doing so it get start by pressing one time off-on button. Then it works smoothly for two three days to one week or 10 days. star smoothly and work smoothely.I don’t have the battery at present, am using it at home at fixed place, have replaced battery one year ago, this problem persist since December 2009.ealer it was working smoothly without battery’s have shown my laptop to many hardware service centre of hp bit they could not find the trouble. Please help me. Thanks.