Can a broken laptop spontaneously fix itself?

[Mloot]

A couple of months ago, my son dropped my wife's HP laptop. It seemed to be fine for about a day, but the next day it refused to boot into Windows (something about a missing or corrupt file). Tried every trick in the book to get it back in working condition (tried re-installing XP, to no avail). Finally, I took it to a computer repair shop, and was told that it had a bad motherboard. Gave it up for lost, and bought the wife a replacement. Tonight, however, I turned it on just for old times sake (I was getting ready to take it apart to salvage some parts) and it booted right into Windows (straight into the XP setup, I guess because one of the last things I tried was a re-installation). It seems to be working fine for now, but is there any way to know for certain that something is not still borked, and won't die again in a day or two? Is this sort of thing commonplace?

 

Run D-Ban ( http://dban.sourceforge.net/ ) to fully erase the disk, since it seems like the motherboard is not the problem. Then, perform a fresh install of Windows, making sure to boot off the CD and format the disk in NTFS format.

 

[Hacp]

I have no Idea, but it just happens sometimes with electronics. I remember my old CD drive that was buggy. Once it got soo bad that It wouldn't open anymore unless I used the hole. Well I left it alone for a few months, and it worked again! 2 months later it died, but I was happy that I got 2 extra months out of that CD drive.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: jumpr
Run D-Ban ( http://dban.sourceforge.net/ ) to fully erase the disk, since it seems like the motherboard is not the problem. Then, perform a fresh install of Windows, making sure to boot off the CD and format the disk in NTFS format.

Good advice, I'd only add to do a SLOW NTFS reformat on that hard drive. This will remap out any bad sectors that may have been caused by the dropping of the laptop, and ensure against future I/O errors on that drive.

 

[casper114]

It could still be the motherboard like one of your IDE channels for example.... It could just be a cracked piece of sod on the motherboard that gets connectivity when it wants to or is sitting in a specific position. I say it's a lost cause more then likely.... but it wont hurt anything trying to run it. I wouldn't put any valuable information on it though.....

 

[birdpup]

Similarly, I had dropped a hard drive about 30cm, after which the drive showed errors with a diagnostic tool so I set the drive on a shelf and forgot about it. Six months later I needed some extra, temporary, storage space and put the drive back in the system. I reran the same diagnostic tests as before but this time there were no errors. The drive has been working fine since then, which has been about three months now. I cannot explain this situation either.

 

[kitkat22]

get a new drive?

 

[WorthyistheLamb]

Okay, can anyone tell me how this happened to MY laptop? To answer the others, I don't know but I sure need help on this. We have a laptop that has been fried, dead, utterly ruined for over a year. It would not so much as turn on, much less get anything to load. I'm not ashamed, I prayed because I use the computer a lot for Bible study and other things I'm doing for my faith. We had it checked out and the tech said that the motherboard was destroyed. I had a bad virus and threw up all over it AND spilled my soda all over it. Needless to say, I killed my computer. We tried for about 6 or 7 months to even get it to turn on. One day I just tried a prayer. Well, it came on instantly for the first time in about a year. It only stayed up long enough for my husband to see that the hard drive was okay because he has an awesome playlist of music that we cannot find anywhere now. So, he got what he needed, he knew the music or hard drive was fine. About 3 months after that, I tried again doing the same thing and it came on but just for a second. it loaded Windows fine but only stayed on less than 5 minutes. However, Saturday night it finally turned on again (now we couldn't get it to even turn on for over a year) but a window came on saying it was repairing something but shutdown again shortly after that. Last night, I tried again but this time, it stayed on and did a few things and now it's working like a brand new computer. There is nothing wrong with it. All programs, music, pictures, Windows, d/l'ed programs, etc. were fine. It hooked right up to our internet and printer. We've shut it down 3 or 4 times and never fails to load.


I can reconcile that maybe it was able to repair a minor issue with it (that's all it was) but that doesn't explain being able to turn it on. For over a year, no matter how hard we tried, it would not even so much as turn on so even if auto repair is possible, it would have to be turned on before that could happen. It only turned on in super specific situations. How did this happen? No computer expert that I have asked has a clue. They think I'm making it up but this is exactly what happened. They claim it is an impossibility as the motherboard was utterly destroyed, it had to be replaced and wouldn't fix itself over time. Was told it would be much cheaper to buy a new laptop. The ONLY problem we had was it wouldn't recognize the wi-fi mouse and come to find out that duh....the battery in the mouse was dead, lol. So please, if you have a logical reason for this to have happened, I need to know. This is just sort of illogical to me. I guess you could call me Mr. Spock, lol.

 

[Ranulf]

The mobo and laptop as whole dried out from the soda and vomit over a year?

 

[Burpo]

Likely from a liquid spill that dried out, and finally powered on. A gummed up, sticking cpu fan that wasn't working at first (causing overheat shut downs), after repeated attempts to boot eventually freed up & started working. Windows then fixed the corrupt files on the drive, and finally booted..

Hey, it's possible.. That's my questimate, and I'm "sticking" to it

 

[hhhd1]

The coldness of the winter could have contributed in making the laptop work NOW, and delaying shutdown due to overheat or due to bad fan.

 

[WorthyistheLamb]

Thank you so much. But it works on and off. Not sure what's going on with it. Won't come on right now but it may in an hour. I just wish it would either die or stay on, lol.

 

[Oyeve]

I worked at Arista records once and some idiot put a candle on her wooden desk, then went to a meeting. Smoke alarms and sprinkler system went off and flooded 2 floors. Some thinkpad 750 laptops were submerged under water for 3 full days. We went in to collect and tag them for insurance purposes. I took one fully apart, let it dry for a few days. Checked it and it was already starting to rust badly. Scraped of rust on mobo parts and for shits and grins I plugged it in. It booted right up. Even the HD was working.

 

[WorthyistheLamb]

Thanks for the info but the question I can't figure out is why it would never even turn on. The "on" light wouldn't even turn on. The computer tech tried also. So, is there any reason why it would spontaneously turn on? We tried to do that for well over a year and just now (recently) it has started turning on and was able to boot up. I just can't understand why it would not turn on.

 

[jihe]

Well yeah, if you believe in quantum mechanics.