I've had a Compaq Presario F700 for the past 18 months (warranty is for 12) and it has had very few problems in that time. This evening, I went over to use the computer after it had been on a screensaver and the monitor had been powered down for maybe an hour. When I moved the mouse, the display just showed a bunch of moving white lines across the black screen. This happens occasionally and all I have to do is shut the power off and turn it back on. This time, however, the computer would not power up. The power light comes on for about one second and then turns right back off. If I try to power it up a few times, once in a while (maybe every three or four tries, on average), the power light will stay lit, then it will try to read the CD drive (even if there's nothing in there), and then the fan will spin up for just a moment before stopping. The power light will remain on for another twenty seconds after this before shutting off. The display does not work at all and I also tried hooking up an external monitor which doesn't work either. I have tried powering it up with the AC power and battery connected, AC only, and battery only. I have taken out components one by one and tried powering it up with no RAM, no HDD, etc. I have tried unplugging the internal battery in hopes of resetting the BIOS. However, nothing has gotten me any different results. I have not completely disassembled the laptop but from what I can see there are no obvious signs of damage overheating anywhere on the visible parts of the motherboard or nVidia graphics chip.
Are there any other things I can try? I suspect that to actually fix this I may need to replace the motherboard but that's going to be at least $100 just for the part and this was an entry level laptop anyway, so I'd probably just junk it if there's no way to fix this cheaply. For this reason, I'm not opposed to trying something risky that might cause further damage to the laptop.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Are there any other things I can try? I suspect that to actually fix this I may need to replace the motherboard but that's going to be at least $100 just for the part and this was an entry level laptop anyway, so I'd probably just junk it if there's no way to fix this cheaply. For this reason, I'm not opposed to trying something risky that might cause further damage to the laptop.
Any advice would be appreciated.
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