Laptop powers on, but nothing boots.

[hans030390]

I'm fixing up someone's laptop, and I had to reinstall Vista. I got everything installed and updated...and then I installed/updated Office. I had to restart the computer, so I did.

When it turned back on, the power light came on...but that's it. The screen is black, and the HDD indicator never flashed. I don't even see the BIOS screen come up. Nothing. It just seem to be doing nothing. What is going on? If I press the power button in this state, it just turns off right away.

This happened only once before during my reinstallation/update process, and it thankfully worked after I pressed the power button and tried again. This time, it's not doing that.

I've tried it multiple times...waited for it to be off for a long time, and to be on...just to see if anything changed. Nothing.

What's going on? What should I do?

 

[Boobs McGee]

My wife's HP has done that a couple of times now and the machine is less than a year old. What I have done is make sure the thing is powered all the way down. Then pop the battery out for a little bit, pop it back in and try to fire it up.
See if that does anything for you.

 

[hans030390]

Hm. That seemed to do it. Why?

 

[hans030390]

Ok, so I turned it on, logged on...decided to try plugging in the ethernet cable and AC adapter. Suddenly, both my mouse and keyboard no longer work.

So, I had to shut it down by holding the power button...and now it's doing the same thing again with not booting.

 

[Boobs McGee]

It could have been dropped or damaged in some way. Mobo could be going bad. Battery itself could be shot. Sometimes just taking the thing out and putting it back in later can make it work again. It can be hard to identify in a laptop since its not as easy to switch out parts like a desktop machine.
Do you get the indicator showing it is charging even when you are at this "dead" state? If so I would let it charge for a while and then go through the yanking the battery process again.

 

[hans030390]

Yeah, I just checked...it does get the "charging" light when I did that. So, I let it sit completely off for a while with the battery charging, and it seems to be working so far.

 

[hans030390]

Update: It's doing it again...but I've noticed it seems to start working again if I leave the AC cord plugged in (with battery) while it's off and let it sit for a few minutes (up to 30, maybe). Any ideas? When it does work, it works fine (slow Vista boot up put aside)...

I've heard it may be the CMOS battery. Opinions?