laptop doesnt bootup

[imrpat]

Hi guys

i was wondering if any of you special people could help me with this real bummer of a problem that has ruined my night.

I have a HP compaq4000 laptop which is about 2 and half years old, all of a sudden when i now switch the laptop on, all i can hear is the fan coming on but nothing boots up, i just get a black screen and it just stays stuck there. what could have caused this, any solutions would be most welcomed

cheers

 

[franklin97355]

If you see drive activity you may need to check the screen contrast/brightness controls or press Fn 9whatever the screen switcher button is on that model) to toggle the screens.

The answer is "42"

 

[G0AOZ]

Do you see anything on the screen at all? When first switched on you might expect to see an HP or Compaq logo appear before it starts to load Windows.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[imrpat]

No i do not see anything not even the HP logo...... i just get a black screen and i can hear the fan spinning away....

any ideas roger

 

[cdogg]

Do you see or hear hard drive activity after you leave it on for 15-20 seconds? If so, it could be that the LCD is out but the rest of the laptop is functioning just fine. Try hooking it up to an external monitor to be sure.

If an external monitor doesn't work and you're not hearing the disk spinning, then it could be anything really. Try the following:

1) Disconnect all power sources and take out the battery
2) Hold the power button down for at least 30 seconds (this drains the capacitors on the motherboard for a hard reset)
3) Leave the battery out and only connect the power cord
4) Press the power button and keep your fingers crossed!

[tab]** If this works, then put the battery back in and you should be good to go. It means your laptop
[tab] was just stuck in a sleep state. The battery can sometimes do that when it's running low. It
[tab] doesn't necessarily mean your battery is bad unless it happens often.

Also try reseating the memory, hard drive, and keyboard. If you're not sure how to do any of those, go to HP's website and look up the "SERVICE" manual for your model. You'll find step-by-step diagrams.

If it's not working after all that, I'd say you have a bad motherboard or bad internal power supply.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[bobc47]

This happened with my IBM t21 last year. I tried removing batteries, holding the pwr key down and many other futile tricks to wake the thing up.

After some searching I found this was likely caused by bad caps on the motherboard. I shipped it off to a shop in the carolina's and they replaced the mb for $160. The thing has worked great from then on - laptop now years old.

I hope that yours just fell asleep, but you might check to see if your model has any history of bad capacitors.

Bob