Dead HP Laptop - any ideas???

sarymclary

Hello to all you Techies out there,

I'm hoping you can help suggest any solutions, or even ideas about what may have caused my boyfriend's HP Laptop to suddenly die on him. The Laptop is about a year or so old, and was working perfectly OK, until a couple of weeks ago. It suddenly switched off, without any warning. Not an auto reboot, or anything like that, it just 'died'.

He tried switching it back on, but nothing worked, he even took the back off it, and when he put it back together, hey presto! it was working again.... and then it switched itself off again the next day he was using it, and now it won't switch on again.

All he can tell me is that he was plugged into the mains, so it wasn't the battery suddenly failing. Could the transformer have become faulty, or could the battery have failed and that interferes with mains connection? Clearly we know very little about these things.

The problem is it's out of warranty, so we'd like to know what direction to look in, and maybe have a little bit of an idea of what we're dealing with when we try to take it to a PC doctor to have it fixed. The thing is, my boyfriend is a bit strapped for cash right now, so keeping the bill to fix it to a minimum is essential. The other problem is that he supplements his income by buying and selling on Ebay, so it's kind of put a stop to his trading.

Any of you techies got any suggestions? A virtual beer to any who can help! :beer: Cheers!!

albertross_2

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=180053

Speculator

Could be build up of dust. Try using a vacuum cleaner on the fan grill underneath the laptop.

wiraone

Speculator wrote:

Could be build up of dust. Try using a vacuum cleaner on the fan grill underneath the laptop.

Be very very careful with that .. I did once on my graphics card's fan and it died on me not long after when the fan couldn't move properly. Instead of using a vacuum cleaner to suck the dust out .. carefully take out the heat sink unit and use the air-duster from Maplin (£5/can) and blow the dust off the heat sink.

sarymclary

Thanks for the replies. He's making his way through all the suggestions, but I thought I'd update and let you know that when he tried switching on without the battery in place, it did come to life for about 3 seconds, and then died again, so that makes us think the laptop isn't completely kaput. He's not tried the vacuuming option, as it's not very dusty, and has 'blown' away the little amount there was.

He's only had the laptop a few months, but it was a refurbished item, and was advised by the supplier that any faults should be referred back to HP. He was under the impression he was sold it with a warranty, but subsequently found out it wasn't.

Anyway, he's currently attempting to remove and replace any internal components he can, in the hope that there was a lose connection of some kind.

BTW, he doesn't have any other sign of life on it, so no lights come on at all, apart from the 3 second glimmer of hope!

Lob_Rockster

I'm guessing something around the power supply circuitry is your problem. Has the laptop been dropped or had undue stress applied to the jack where it connects to the machine?

sarymclary

Lob_Rockster wrote:

I'm guessing something around the power supply circuitry is your problem. Has the laptop been dropped or had undue stress applied to the jack where it connects to the machine?

Hi,
It's not been dropped, that I do know, as it just sits on his desk - he tends to use it more like a desktop, than a portable laptop - I'll get him to check whether he thinks the connection has been stressed in any way. Anything we can check out is a bonus, and hopefully with give us something to suggest to the person we have to take it to to get it fixed. I can just see them sucking air in through their teeth, shaking their head and telling him 'it's gonna cost ya!', and since it looks like I'm going to have to lend him the money to get it fixed, I have a very keen interest on this one.