Kiss of life for a dead laptop?

LincolnshireYokel

On a laptop that age its likely the capacitors have started to leak/blow on the MB. The only way to check is to strip it then examine the MB with a magnifying glass and see how many of the caps have bulging tops. Just one in the wrong part of the circuit could be enough to bring it down.

Figment

Hopster wrote: »

A did say it could be a few things mate and this type of fault is never easy to diagnose on the internet..
However a stand by what a said and it would be the first thing a would check is power.!

When most machines suffer unexpected power loss you usually here a few clicking noises, mostly from the HD..
He says there are no lights coming on, even with a dead MB the lights would usually still come on, the fans would probably start aswell..

A was fixing a laptop 2 days ago and forgot to switch the power on, it completely died on me in the exact same way as the guy described.
When a switched the power on it was fine..

Nothing to do with this topic, but I'm curious to know why you type A instead of I when referring to the first party :huh:

"A was fixing a laptop 2 days ago"

Hopster_2

Figment wrote: »

Nothing to do with this topic, but I'm curious to know why you type A instead of I when referring to the first party :huh:

"A was fixing a laptop 2 days ago"

A do that quite often where a refer to myself as a rather than i, just a bad habit some of Scots do..

Hopster_2

gonzo127 wrote: »

i do know what you mean about being hard to work out over the internet, which is why i said your suggestion is worth checking out, but my main pointis that it would be best to take it to get a proper diagnostic from a local independant (ie - NOT PC world)

Ok, maybe not hard to work out but it would be much easier to fix if it was on my workbench, a few simple tests would soon tell me what the problem is.
My point being its hard to advise people how to repair it, the OP asked if there was a simple way to repair it, with limited knowledge the short answer is no but to advise him how to do it over the internet would be difficult..

I also advised him on my first post to take it to his local pc shop...

elsien

Thanks all. Local chap it is then.

Figment

Was the charger connected to the laptop when this fault occurred?

Does the battery usually hold a decent charge?

bluesnake

I would take the monitor video lead from the working PC and plug it into the laptop, then turn the laptop on and see if a message appears on the screen, or if the screen flashes briefly.

Also attempt power the laptop up with the battery removed and no usb or other devices plugged in.

elsien

Ok, voice mail from local chap saying it's not economic to repair. Don't know why till I speak to him, but looks like I'm now laptop hunting. (And somewhat miffed that an expensive laptop should have died when in my terms it's still comparatively new. I'm just pleased that I won it instead of paying silly money out for it.)

So the next question is:
I basically do work stuff (word processing etc), surfing the net, emails, a bit of downloading music and catching up on ondemand tv. No gaming or anything that needs lots of memory.
So what would you guys suggest I need in terms of the memory etc. (Layperson's terms again would be handy).
Thanks

gonzo127

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOSHIBA-C660-2EM-GV-V1-INTEL-CELERON-1-5GHZ-500GB-LAPTOP-/330734700222?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item4d015306be this would be pretty good for you unless you are willing to do a little bit of DIY to improve RAM on a cheaper laptop (it is really easy, usualy 4 screws and then slot a new stick of ram in and the four screws back) but the above basic spec is more than enough for everything you are likely to do

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOSHIBA-SATELLITE-L755-LAPTOP-500GB-15-6-PENTIUM-B940-4GB-RAM-SILVER-REFURB-/330737073257?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item4d01773c69 is also pretty good, slightly better processor but of course more expensive