Did I just brick the laptop?? OMG!

Tea_Bag

I got a friend's laptop here, an HP Pavilion dv2000, which i removing viruses and stuff from. Anyway the laptop wasnt booting into safemode or anything so i managed to copy over some important files etc before reformatting the HDD, using the HP Recovery program on a partition to reinstall XP. Anyway so the laptop was fixed and "like new", so i went about updating XP, but the PC froze on DLing IE8, (I know IE is useless but he's a simple man. still trying to convert him to use Opera) well not the PC itself but the DL/install. just hung for hours. anyway i rebooted and restarted the DL/install. SP3 was also on the list to DL. The laptop suddenly turned off (not shutting down) and wouldnt turn back on again, instead it flashes the power LED 3 times.

at the time the laptop was plugged into the mains charging, and now when i plug it in it doesnt register a charge, i.e. the little blue ring around the charge hole doesnt light up...

I know the laptop was unusable with the gabillion viruses he had on it (no joke), but now im up **** creek without a paddle.

any advice guys? pretty desperate here. fucking IE8 POS.

/release deep breath

Khannie

My HP laptop does that flashing thing when the battery's too low to boot. Try removing the battery and using mains only.

You can't brick a laptop with windows anyway. Don't worry about that. If it was gonna die, it was gonna die.

Moving to laptops forum.....

Tea_Bag

thanks for the quick reply.

after following HP's advice on the problem, which didnt work, i waited a while and then the laptop suddenly felt it was good and ready to work again, and simply switched on with one click.:mad:

HP does say it needs a BIOS update anyway, and that the dv2000 was subject to a recall and updated warranty.

would updating the BIOS be a good idea? never done it before, so should i take any precautions?

Khannie

I would advise against updating a bios unless you need to for some reason. Bios updating does have the potential to brick a motherboard.

ttm

Khannie wrote: »

I would advise against updating a bios unless you need to for some reason. Bios updating does have the potential to brick a motherboard.

Yeh your right but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do the BIOS upgrade. I must have done hundreds and not had a problem but each time I think is this the one thats not going to work :eek:.

If HP say you should do the upgrade then you really need to as they don't say that sort of thing if the BIOS upgrade doesn't do something useful, but you should be able to read the list of stuff the upgrade does and make your own mind up if you need to do it.

Loveless

do be careful alright updating the BIOS. A lot of Toshiba laptops now have Operating System specific BIOS updates, ie. one update for XP and a seperate update for Vista.

Learnt that the hard way, and it will brick the laptop if you apply the wrong one.