HP Pavilion DV 6700 - refuses to boot

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi folks,

I came across this strange situation... a laptop which refuses to boot.

A coworker has asked me for help - the machine just hangs at the BIOS screen. No matter what I do, it just won't go beyond the HP boot logo.


I can enter the BIOS and make modifications to the startup items - I tried to make sure that the hard drive is seen as a primary boot source. Nothing.

I tried to set up the DVD drive as a first boot, with a Ubuntu 10.10 disc inside (thinking I can try to see if Linux would install). Still nothing.

The Phoenix BIOS allows me to perform memory and primary hard drive diagnostics. They both pass.

Googling the issue, using various terms, will bring up many instances of people complaining about laptops which refuse to work, but the problems aren't exactly similar, and I haven't found anything that would help in this case.

To be honest, I never encountered a situation when a Linux disc won't work. Until now, that is.


Any ideas?

 

[corkyg]

Possibly the CPU may need reseating.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Ha! I will try that as well...

Also, it looks like this entire series is prone to defects and trouble, and the motherboards are notoriously faulty. Many people complain about the build quality of the dv6700 series.

 

[Gunbuster]

I would still guess HDD. Try unplugging it.

 

[Lanyap]

This model is plagued with the GPU overheating issue but the symptom for that is you have no video output. Since you can see the bios info on the screen this may be different. If this model runs Vista try continually pressing PF8 when you power up and see if it will take you to the Vista repair screen.

Also, go into the BIOS and turn off fast boot and turn off the HP logo. I don't remember exactly what they are called in the BIOS but you will know it when you see it. This will do more tests on power up and will display BIOS initialization information like you normally see for desktops and may tell you exactly where it is hanging.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Here's an update, folks - thank you for the suggestions sent so far.

I tried to remove and reinsert the HDD - no change.
I reset the BIOS, by removing the battery and reinserting it - no change.

Lanyap, you suggested a BIOS change which doesn't seem to be available - I don't have such extensive BIOS control. Very strange... I've seen other people saying that one thing that worked for them was disabling native SATA in the BIOS - but for the life of me, I can't see where this option is offered.

Otherwise, reading about this machine makes it look like the owners are in for a bucket of hurt... just look at these examples:

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7587_102-311738.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/233974-dv2000-dv6000-dv9000-recall.html
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1147659

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I'm wondering, if I end up by cannibalizing the parts, what are the things worth keeping (aside from the obvious HDD and RAM)? Will the CPU work with other machines? Could the LCD screen be reused or repurposed? Hmmm....

 

[MadScientist]

The dv6700 series as Lanya pointed out does have overheating/GPU issues, but if you can see a screen the GPU is still functional.

To find a bios update you have to search HP for the specific model. In the dv6700 series there are many models. You can find the exact model number on the bottom of the laptop or in the bios.

http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Lookup?h_lang=en&h_cc=us&cc=us&h_page=hpcom&lang=en&h_client=S-A-R163-1&h_pagetype=s-001&h_query=dv6700&submit=Go+%BB

From the symptoms it may be a hardware issue, hard drive or ram, but it may be the OS. Did your your co-worker burn OS recovery disks? Depending on what OS is on the laptop you may be able to do an OS recovery if you can access the recovery partition.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00006110&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3645846

As previously suggested try first flashing the bios with the latest bios.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I'll try the BIOS next, sure!
This is fun, and I'm learning quite a few things along the way.