HP G60-235DX Powers on, no video - PS or MB problem?

[Matt L]

Got a 2+ year old HP G60-235DX laptop. Worked fine until lat week. It has a bad battery so I leave it plugged in all the time. Bought a green power supply that is supposed to power down when no in use and power up when needed.

Last week kind of a freak event. Laptop was on what little battery power it had, plugged in the green power supply and then the cord fell out. Computer went black and has not powered up since.

When I plug in the HP power supply, the indicator light comes on, indicating power. If I hit the power button, it lights up, fan comes on, and orange network light comes on, no hard drive light or activity - that is all. I hear no hard drive sound, tried an external monitor, nothing. Tried a hard reset as per HP, nothing. Dropped in a Puppy Linux disk, DVD spins up then nothing.

No money for a new laptop, plus I really liked the 16" screen. Can anyone point me to a good staring point? What are the odds it's the power supply? MB?

 

[nitrous9200]

Do you notice if the caps lock and num lock LEDs are flashing? If so, check here to find out what it might be: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01443366&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en

Have you tried removing one or both RAM modules to see if anything different occurs?

Also try holding down all four arrow keys while pressing the power button (also listed on the above HP page - not likely that you'll need to do this, nor is it likely to do anything, but it might work).

If the laptop powers on, I doubt that the power supply is the issue. It wouldn't hurt to use the original AC adapter if you still have it, or find someone else with a fairly new HP/Compaq laptop (as they almost all have the same plug and will work).

In a few random cases, I've had laptops that would appear to power on (power LED would light up) but nothing would happen, not even the CPU fan would spin; the solution was removing and reseating the CPU.

 

[Matt L]

Thanks, Tried your tricks but no go. I have no Num light or Caps lights. Only lights are power button, orange wireless light, small light over mouse pad, and the power indicator light of the front edge.

Tried clearing the laptop by holding down the power button with power disconnected for 15 seconds, and something I did, might have been holding down the 4 arrow keys while powering up caused the power light to flash continually, no pattern, just blinking. But nothing happened.

Complicating the matter is that I've had a bad video cable for some time, the screen would go blank or gray if I move the lid too much one way or the other. Tried booting with an HDMI monitor or a VGA monitor connected, both had the same issue- black screen. No matter in that sense, I'm not getting any hard drive action on start up so something else is wrong.

 

[Ketchup]

Fixing a laptop can get really expensive really fast. If there is no video at bootup, and no hard drive spin-up, it sounds like a motherboard problem (possibly hard drive too). A power surge could be the culprit. Just the motherboard is going for $100 on ebay. If the display is already out, it's not worth it. Save up for something cheap.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Matt L]

Yeah, odds are it's the mother board, So I'll be looking for one on ebay. Video is not out, just have a bad cable, found one on ebay for $12 so that's no biggie. $100 MB is much cheaper than a new laptop in the 16" range.