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Need help with failing laptop

H

Hard_Boiled

Golden Member
I am trying to fix a laptop that my friend gave me to look at, it is a Compaq Armada 1573DM. He said it would freeze from time to time. So I take his laptop, plug in the charger cord and turn it on. I get 3 beeps and a blank screen. I unplug the power cord so it's running just on the battery. I don't know why it behaves like this but with no power cord it turns on just fine, loads windows and appears fine. I thought I would just format the hard drive and do a fresh install of Win98 for him. But the battery started running low and I turned it off and plugged the charger back in to charge up the battery.

So a couple hours later I come back to it, unplug the power cord and turn it on. I get 3 beeps again. Plug in the power cord, I get 3 beeps. Why in the world is it acting like this? It's as if having ample power makes it not work. I've never had a problem with a laptop not posting and frankly I don't know what to do at all. Right now I've got it turned on, with just a blank screen. Once the battery power dies down a little I want to see if it will post again. Has anyone got any suggestions for this dilemma?
 
the only thing that I suggest you is to call the manufacture. Don't open the laptop cause you might lose the warranty. I think it's the hardware issue rather than a software issue.





Darno
 

I think what you?re experiencing is cold solder joints. I had one like that many years ago. Anytime you tried to move it the system would freeze, and when it wouldn?t POST you?d have to rack the case a little bit to get the contacts back into position. Finally cracked it open and re-soldered (those were the days before surface mount components, you can?t do that with today?s laptops) the connectors that connected the boards together... solved the problem for good.

 
Thanks for the help, I really have no way of knowing what is wrong with it without opening it up but I get a feeling that Escalade is on the right track. Most definitely a hardware problem, I think the memory is ok because when I did get it to post and boot into Windows everything seemed alright.

The laptop is a Pentium 233 MMX, a little old and not covered under warranty anymore. My friend was about to either give this thing away or throw it away, so I think opening it up and soldering is a risk I can take. Either that or I'll toss it against the wall a few times.

Once again thank you for the help.
 
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