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Laptop is dying, help
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stevensondrive
Nov 11, 09 15:22
Post #1 of 12 (245 views)
Laptop is dying, help
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The screen is dying. At least that is my theory. I turned it on and it made all the normal startup sounds but with a black screen. I rebooted. Same thing. This time I pushed the little closed case button. The screen blinked on before going into hybernation. I let it sit a couple days then turned it on. It worked fine for 20 minutes. I downloaded most of my important documents before the screen again blacked out.
Not sure of age of HP laptop. Probably 3-4 years old. It was a $499 special at the time. So I won't put much money into it. I'm already looking for its replacement.
I am already looking for a replacement. Still thought I would ask the geniuses on here.
Steve
TNO OT castaway
Pedalsaurus_Tex
Nov 11, 09 15:28
Post #2 of 12 (240 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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Call the White House. Apparently if we are all entitled to health care, its probably not a far stretch to suggest that we all should have new laptops as well. Obama will fix this for you.
Sausagetail
Nov 11, 09 15:41
Post #3 of 12 (231 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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Try connecting it to an external monitor. When the screen is blank it could be anything from the screen to the AC adapter. If the screen is blank when the laptop is otherwise still working then it could be the backlight. You can find replacements online.
A few years ago, I was ready to buy a new laptop when my laptop's LCD started flickering. Opening up the screen and putting a piece of electrical tape in the right spot (inverter circuit board) fixed it.
chrisesposito
Nov 11, 09 16:44
Post #4 of 12 (207 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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At $499 it probably didn't have much of a video / graphics subsystem in it, but even lower-powered ones tend to run hotter than older systems did and are more prone to failure than most other subsystems (excluding disk drive), according to my local enterprise-wide IT help desk. If you can find a PC repair place that does laptop repairs on-site it might be worth your time and a little money to get your current one fixed (assuming you are otherwise happy with it). If they'll credit any diagnosis costs towards the repair costs, so much the better.
Plugging in an external monitor is a good suggestion - if the monitor shows the usual startup graphics sequence, it's a good bet it's your LCD screen. Otherwise, it might be your video card or something else. How to tell?
Most PCs make some noise (beeps, etc. ) when they power on, and in some cases (like yours, possibly) these noises may be all the info you have to go on. The results of a series of power on self-tests (POST codes) are encoded into a series of a varying number of long and short beeps, depending on the exact BIOS your system motherboard has installed. These noises can be used to help figure out where the problem is - CPU, memory, graphics, etc. See
http://www.postcodemaster.com/
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-on_self-test
as 2 places with more info.
Chris
stevensondrive
Nov 12, 09 5:58
Post #5 of 12 (175 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [chrisesposito]
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The beeps are identical to any other startup. Just with a black screen
Steve
TNO OT castaway
STP
Nov 12, 09 6:12
Post #6 of 12 (168 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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The suggestions above are good, particularly hooking it up to an external monitor. That will tell you if it is the screen or something internal.
If you confirm what's wrong, there are lots of parts on eBay and a Google search should turn up directions on how to replace what needs to be replaced. Although, for a 4 year old $499 laptop, it may not be worth the cost, or effort, to fix. I've taken apart a few laptops and while it can be done, its kind of a PIA. Lots of small screws and you usually have to do major disassembly to get at what you want to replace. There is almost no way it will be worth fixing if you are paying someone else to do it.
stevensondrive
Nov 12, 09 9:54
Post #7 of 12 (135 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [STP]
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I turned it on this morning. it is working perfectly. 5 hours and still working..... huh?
Steve
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jkca1
Nov 12, 09 11:07
Post #8 of 12 (122 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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Laptops need to be cooled. Is the fan running continuously or not at all? Is the undeside of the PC hot? A dead fan will fry your motherboard.
"They are all crooks, both sides of the aisle."
Locke
Nov 12, 09 11:54
Post #9 of 12 (100 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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I just bought a new HP, celeron processor, 3 gig of ram, 250 gig hard drive and windows 7 for $298 at Wal Mart. It was a one day special, but those type of deals are out there if you just watch for them.
At these prices, its not worth even thinking about having it repaired. Laptops are damn near disposable now.
"My only words of wisdom are just, radio edit" - Kid Rock
chrisesposito
Nov 12, 09 12:10
Post #10 of 12 (96 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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So it's an intermittent failure in some component that isn't tested by the onboard / built-in diagnostics. Which probably means that an accurate diagnosis is going to be all the harder, and if you take it to a repair shop, all the more costly. It sounds like you're Ok with spending the $ for a replacement, so I'd be looking for bargains as I expect the PC vendors and big electronics stores will be pushing Windows 7 pretty hard.
Sausagetail
Nov 12, 09 12:16
Post #11 of 12 (92 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [stevensondrive]
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It sounds more and more like the CCFL backlight and/or its inverter. It's basically a slim-down glorified fluorescent light. It's having problems starting so sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't--much like a fluorescent light. If it lit up that one time when you were powering down it was because the lamp was off due to it being in power saving mode which the shutdown process brought it out of and the lamp was successfully started that time.
Replacement parts are just a few dollars.
stevensondrive
Nov 12, 09 16:51
Post #12 of 12 (70 views)
Re: Laptop is dying, help [jkca1]
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fan runs.
Steve
TNO OT castaway
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