Help: Possible Motherboard Failure

Monsieur Folie

Hello,

As of yesterday my laptop will no longer boot. I have tried another charger and another battery and I've tried a hard reset all to no avail. I've tested my battery and charger with another laptop and they worked fine, so it's an issue with the laptop.

The only sign of life it shows is the charger light turns on when the charger is plugged in. Other than that it's essentially bricked and will not turn on at all.

I've been told it's possibly a motherboard failure? Is that likely? If so, how much am I looking at repair wise and also, are all my files gone or are they still okay provided the hard drive hasn't failed? Is there anything else that can cause this?

The laptop is a HP Pavilion G6, it's an year and approx two months old so was told by PC world that it's out of warranty.

Thanks in advance for any help!

(Edit: just realised that laptops have their own forum so if this is more suited to there could a mod please move it? If it's okay here then never mind)

unkel

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

The laptop is a HP Pavilion G6, it's an year and approx two months old so was told by PC world that it's out of warranty.

That's not good enough. It is irrelevant that the laptop has only a 1 years warranty. When you bought the laptop, you could expect it to work for more than a year and you are protected by the "Sale of goods act"

Mention that to a manager in PC world and demand either a replacement, a refund or a repair (it's up to them to decide)

Mention the small claims court if he isn't budging

A motherboard replacement is likely to cost you around the €200 mark. And don't worry, it is very likely all your files are safe on the hard disk

hearny

As posted above, push PCWorld on it and they will sort it for you.

You should have a case that the goods were not fit for sale.

You should be covered by a 2 year retailers guarantee within the EU, press them with the threat of small claims court if no action is taken:
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/ecc/consumer_topics/buying_goods_services_en.htm

Your data should be ok, but be warned if you give the laptop into PCWorld it may come back without your data on it.

Its easy to take the hard drive out if you want to either keep the drive while the computer is sent back or copy your important files from it.

Take a look at this video, the hard drive is removed between 0:47 and 1:05:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7nFnR_SGqc

Just be careful with the drive once its taken out and make sure that the manager knows you have it, incase they think you are pulling a fast one.

Monsieur Folie

Thanks for the replies, they've been very helpful. I know a guy who would try and do it for me as affordable as he can do, and he's quite reliable as the family have had him fix things many times before, but I might try my luck with PC world first once I root out the receipt. I suppose heading in without the receipt wouldn't help my case?

I know it's here, it's just one of those "put in a safe place but subsequently forget safe place" scenarios.

So if I read up on the sale of goods act and go in knowing what I'm talking about I stand a good chance at getting a resolution? On a student budget I'd struggle to fork out 200 quid for a repair so this would be ideal.

unkel

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

So if I read up on the sale of goods act and go in knowing what I'm talking about I stand a good chance at getting a resolution?

Absolutely. Be polite and reasonable and tell the manager that if it had happened after 2 or 2.5 years, then yeah, laptops don't last very long, but you genuinely expected it to last a good bit more than a year

(if he has even the faintest clue about the sale of goods act, he'll know he won't get away with it at that stage )

Irish Steve

There is good history for the claim, a while back, a number of manufacturers had severe problems with Nvidia graphics chips that were coming loose on the motherboard, and required an expensive repair or board replacement to resolve.

After a long fight, Curry's & PC world had to accept that as the retailer they were responsible for resolving the problem

For more details, do a Google search on Nvidia GPU failure, you will find a lot of helpful information there in terms of how to make the approach to the shop. .

janeparker

In case of any problem with motherboard, system already generates a messages like "Contact to manufacturer or vendor for troubleshoot problematic issues". Being a provoking user, it is necessary to submit your machine at manufacturer for better supervision. Now don't waste your time and take help of vendor as soon possible.

sawdoubters

remove your battery and unplug your charger, then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds, then put your battery back and plug your charger back in again

also try the same don't put back in battery

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01443371&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3650971

Monsieur Folie

Strange turn of events, I was giving the laptop a bit of a clean on Saturday so it would look more respectable when I brought it into PC world, and decided to try the power button one more time........ It turned on.

Now before anyone sighs and says I'm silly, I tried everything the day it 'broke' and could not get it going. I tried the reset as mentioned by sawdoubters above, I tried my battery and another charger, another battery with my charger, another battery with another charger and no way would it turn on, the power button was completely unresponsive. But yet, after being left aside for a few days, it turned on just fine!

Any idea what is going on here? I'm worried it'll happen again, though it seems to be working just fine now as if nothing had ever happened. I've asked around and nobody seems to have a clue, they just laugh and assume I'd "forgotten to plug it in" or something of that ilk.

tharmor

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Strange turn of events, I was giving the laptop a bit of a clean on Saturday so it would look more respectable when I brought it into PC world, and decided to try the power button one more time........ It turned on.

Now before anyone sighs and says I'm silly, I tried everything the day it 'broke' and could not get it going. I tried the reset as mentioned by sawdoubters above, I tried my battery and another charger, another battery with my charger, another battery with another charger and no way would it turn on, the power button was completely unresponsive. But yet, after being left aside for a few days, it turned on just fine!

Any idea what is going on here? I'm worried it'll happen again, though it seems to be working just fine now as if nothing had ever happened. I've asked around and nobody seems to have a clue, they just laugh and assume I'd "forgotten to plug it in" or something of that ilk.

I am facing similar issue. Did you keep it without battery for some time ??

Monsieur Folie

tharmor wrote: »

I am facing similar issue. Did you keep it without battery for some time ??

Not even, I left the battery in it for the most part when it was lying around. The only suggestion I received from anyone after is that it may have been some sort of moisture damage but unless one of the flatmates spilled something unbeknownst to me then I doubt it.

ion564

Open the laptop and change the heat sink that is on the CPU.