Bringing life back to a Laptop

[dannerz]

Hey Guys

Need a bit of help trouble shooting. I have a compaq laptop, all the lights come on(but hard drive light does not flicker), hard drive is spinning and the cd drive spins on startup, but nothing comes up on the screen, nothing whatsoever, I dont think its the screen(refer below) that's the problem.

Here are the facts:
-hardrive works(tested)
-ive taken the battery out and left it out for ages and then tried to get it going again
-tried to plug in a monitor with same result(blank)
-Swapped out ram with no success.

Any help would be much appreciated!!!!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Educated guesses: 1) The battery's worn and although it stores enough power to light an led or two it can't supply enough current to power the machine. Many machines need the battery in place and in good condition to run, they won't run solely on the power from the charger. 2) More likely the motherboard's died, including the graphics chip.

If it can be proved it's a faulty battery by temporary substitution by briefly trying a new one then buy a new battery. If that doesn't work depending on the machine's age either scrap it or get a quote for a repair from a local dealer then decide whether it's worth it or not.

My diagnosis by no means definite, as I said, just guesses.

 

[Anon_F]

how old's the laptop?
when did you last use it?

 

[dannerz]

the laptops oldish, and I used it probably once a day? then out of the blue it went like this!

 

[Anon_F]

could be old age?
i've just started using a 5 year old laptop that had not been used in 2 years.
had to do a bit of work on it to get it working again!

 

[dannerz]

yeah could be but i wanna try and fix it if i can!

 

[TriplexDread]

Have you tried plugging it into another monitor?

 

[dannerz]

Yeah I've tried that screen is still blank (see first post)

 

[TriplexDread]

Did you switch it over to external monitor?

Usually a function key?

 

[dannerz]

Yeah tried that, there's no noise from te speakers either

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

I would think that the first major part to look at would be memory. See if you can get your hands on a replacement module for testing. It could be failing and causing the issue. You could also try reseating it.

I had a friend bring me a laptop that wouldn't boot. Similar situation. No POST, nothing. He sat on it. I expected the worst but the screen wasn't broken or anything. Figuring he broke something inside, I tore into it. Nothing was broken or damaged, that I could see. So I proceeded to remove all parts and connections and put it back together. Upon power up, it worked fine. He's been using it ever since. Figured it may help.