Dead laptop

NoQuarter

Hi all,

My laptop was sitting there last night and the screen went a funny colour, as if the screen had smashed or something, so I gave the mouse a wiggle and the desktop came back, albeit at a bit of a lower resolution, or pixelated moreso. This happened twice so I just shut down the computer as normal.

I tried to turn it back on later that night and the screen stays black, the power comes on and it sounds like it engages the hard disk and then it just stays at high revs and nothing happens. A tip of the power button and it turns off again. No movement from that.

Any ideas?

Knex*

Have you a monitor around that you might be able to connect to your laptop in order to see if its a screen issue?

NoQuarter

Knex. wrote: »

Have you a monitor around that you might be able to connect to your laptop in order to see if its a screen issue?

Hrmm yeah I might be able to do that. However, from the sound of the laptop alone, I have a feeling its more!

NoQuarter

OK so its not the screen, or at least, not just the screen. Hooked it up to my desktop monitor and no luck!

Any other ideas?

Knex*

NoQuarter wrote: »

OK so its not the screen, or at least, not just the screen. Hooked it up to my desktop monitor and no luck!

Any other ideas?

Doesn't sound good, I'm afraid. Could well mean an issue with GPU, probably through overheating.

Two things - Model of your laptop, and do you still have your warranty?

Also, how confident would you be of your ability to open it up and check that RAM hasn't popped loose? Doubt its that, but always worth a try.

NoQuarter

Knex. wrote: »

Doesn't sound good, I'm afraid. Could well mean an issue with GPU, probably through overheating.

Two things - Model of your laptop, and do you still have your warranty?

Also, how confident would you be of your ability to open it up and check that RAM hasn't popped loose? Doubt its that, but always worth a try.

Its a HP Compaq nc6400. have had lots of problems with it overheating and performance was terrible because of that so I had a cooling pad sitting under it at all times. It helped a lot but performance was pretty awful. It was a second hand laptop and would be well out of warranty now.

I cant afford a new laptop yet (although I was going to get one anyway soon) but its annoying because I had a lot of work stuff on it. I assume the HD is ok and should be recoverable?

I would be ok with popping it open, it had been sat on my desk without moving for days though so I would be surprised if it was the RAM.

Knex*

NoQuarter wrote: »

Its a HP Compaq nc6400. have had lots of problems with it overheating and performance was terrible because of that so I had a cooling pad sitting under it at all times. It helped a lot but performance was pretty awful. It was a second hand laptop and would be well out of warranty now.

I cant afford a new laptop yet (although I was going to get one anyway soon) but its annoying because I had a lot of work stuff on it. I assume the HD is ok and should be recoverable?

I would be ok with popping it open, it had been sat on my desk without moving for days though so I would be surprised if it was the RAM.

Harddrive should be fine, so no worries there.

Actually, keeping it plugged into the external monitor, if you turn laptop on, and immediately start pressing F12, does anything show up on the monitor for you?

Want to make sure before I rule it completely out.

Edit: Pressing fn + f4 should toggle between displays and may be reason why nothing showed first time

NoQuarter

Knex. wrote: »

Harddrive should be fine, so no worries there.

Actually, keeping it plugged into the external monitor, if you turn laptop on, and immediately start pressing F12, does anything show up on the monitor for you?

Want to make sure before I rule it completely out.

Edit: Pressing fn + f4 should toggle between displays and may be reason why nothing showed first time

No nothing at all shows up, just the same as before.

I've tried fn + f4 now and still the same.

Thanks for this, I really appreciate your time.

Knex*

Afraid I don't really know where to go from here, definitely seems like some hardware malfunction, be it the GPU or even the Motherboard itself frying. Hopefully its not as bad as that, but impossible for me to say without it in front of me.

Anyone else have any suggestions for the OP before he goes elsewhere for a fix?

The Muppet

yeah remove the battery and power lead leave it for a few minutes and then try it again with just the power lead plugged in.

williamdonohoe

Remove the battery plug in power cord and see does this work. If not is the unit over heating it could be a build up of dust. third graphic card apply heat with heat gun 50% of the time this works including it is the card thats the problem