Laptop won't turn on

Hi,

My laptop has been playing up for a couple of months and will no longer turn on. The only lights that are on are the charging and power light. It turns on and you can hear the fan but the screen fails to light up along with the lights that tell you the hard drive is being accessed ect.

The few months before it died, it kept getting a static charge and would not turn on. This could be solved by unplugging it and holding down the power button to release the charge then plugging it in. All the lights came on and it worked as normal.

Now, I think possibly the mother board may have died, as no other lights are coming on other than power/charging. Any advice before I take it to a repair shop would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

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Reply 1

scriberg

i have the same problem with my toshiba, ive tested it with a meter and it seems okay but i think its a problem with the motherboard

best you get it checked out

Reply 2

Alexion

Just get it checked by a professional. This ain't something we can really help with...

Reply 3

Skyfox47

Possible graphics card soldering melted which caused it to dislodge. You can open it to check.

Reply 4

username1986099

Have you tried turning it off and on again. Just tryna lighten the mood!

Reply 5

Just_Another_One

1. Screen fails to light up eh.... Like can you adjust the screen brightness, or is there no light what so ever, perhaps the back light has failed, idk, see if you can adjust, OR use a torch, or your camera flash as a troch and put it close at the laptop screen, can you see a faint image? If you can, the backlight has failed, if the backlight hasn't failed, and the actuall LCD isn't working, it could be that the screen is not receiving a signal from the motherboard or the LCD has died altogether.

2. Do you have a computer monitor at home? Or a TV with HDMI? If so, plug an external display into the laptop, and boot it up, and see if you can get the external monitor to work, you may have to press on of the function buttons on your laptop, or press it with the fn key too. - If this does work, then that means your Graphics Processor Chip is OK.

3. Also, those flashing lights, what is the manufacture e.g Toshiba - L50 D 1DZ - and go on to the manufacturer website and see if those flashing lights mean anything. e.g. 3 flashes form the battery light and num lock light could mean RAM failure, but that is a example. If you can, look on YouTube on how to remove RAM, very simple, a kid can do it, see if RAM is causing the problem, it is not too likely, however, I have seen some Laptop not even display an error message because of that. Just remember to touch something metal to ground yourself, before touching the RAM, and don;t cause static build up, basically, don't scratch your hair or rub your feet on the carpet, and only touch the RAM modules by the sides/edges. But if you're not comfortable, don't do it.

Also check if the harddisk is spinning= and look at the harddrive activity light (if your laptop has one) (unless you have a SSD) and you say the fan is spinning.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes and messed up sentence structures, I am VERY tired.

OH YEAH, tell us the Make and Model of your Laptop. And your OS if possible.

P.S Post this on a computer fourm such as Britec's or Tom's Hardware.

Feel free to reply.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 6

Another

Ah, good old Toshiba problems

Have you made sure that there's nothing in the CD drive, or no USB cables plugged in when starting up?

What happens if you take the battery out, and try again?

I went through a strange ritual of turning my laptop on with my last Toshiba machine. The whole system would freeze if you plugged the charger in too early (aka, any time before "enter your password here" screen showed up. That was fun on a 5 second battery life... so try plugging your charger in a bit later. Also, if any USB cables were attached during startup, freeze again. If you started typing your password before you plugged the charger cable in, freeze...) It's only going to get worse from here on out, how old is the laptop?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 7

spotify95

From what I can see I think it's a bigger problem than the battery. And anyway even if the battery has failed you should still be able to turn the laptop on via the mains.

Reply 8

spotify95

Most laptops will turn on even with a dead battery though. My school that I used to go to had a load of old HP laptops, all the batteries were useless but the laptops still powered on. :smile:

Likewise, with my Packard Bell, the original battery won't take a charge but the machine will still boot up.

Anyway, back to the OP's scenario... if the power light/charging light turns on then it's not a power supply issue... If the fan comes on then there is power to the machine. It's unlikely to be a faulty screen but it could be - also, does the hard drive light come on? If not then you might have a faulty HDD.

Reply 9

username2028267

Try considering reflowing your GPU or graphics card. It happens because of overheating of your GPU due to a faulty heat sink or bad design for heat sinks. Take it to a professional who can reflow and reball the GPU chipset for you. Or perhaps you can just remove your ram and swap their places, it some times worked for me. By the way which laptop do you own?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 10

Flather

You need to try and eliminate what is wrong with it. Try a different battery, try connecting a monitor and just keep going until you have isolated the problem

Reply 11

username1494226

If you're laptop is semi modular, try to get at the battery compartment and remove and reinstall the battery just to confirm it isn't an issue with that. If the display isn't physically turning on, it may be damaged display connectors to the motherboard, it could be a damaged GPU(or iGPU on board the GPU), it could be that the motherboard has had it(overheated and dislodged components due to poor soldering of components, the components may have shorted out and died). You should probably get it checked out by a professional if you're unsure.

Reply 12

username1494226

Original post by Azhar Rana

That's the real problem with laptops. With all of the components being miniaturised and the designs being semi-non modular, getting at components to replace them or repair them is difficult. If I go in my desktop and I find that the GPU is dead(maybe by dust conducting electricity, capacitors damage, heatsinks failed), I can(expensively) replace the GPU by taking it out of the PCIe slot and put another straight in. Laptops are a nightmare and require a more delicate touch

Reply 13

username1494226

Original post by Skyfox47

Possible graphics card soldering melted which caused it to dislodge. You can open it to check.

Well that depends if it's a separate dedicated graphics chip or if its integrated onto the CPU(think Intel CPU's or AMD APU's). If that's the case, the whole system is lost.

Reply 14

username1494226

I had a HP DV6 myself from 2011 with a Radeon 6490m on board. This was in a time before I was really tech savy with laptops/desktops. I managed to completely uninstall the drivers as they ended up become broken somehow and I ended up somehow installing desktop grade drivers onto it. Then the GPU could no longer be communicated to with the motherboard and Windows, it vanished from device manager so I had to completely flush the device and recover to an earlier instance of Windows to get the drivers working again. Also, laptops spare GPU's are rare as heck

Reply 15

username2028267

Original post by marco14196

I used to own a HP pavilion DV6000, It was a worst laptop HP has ever made. I have had to replace the GPU four times, hp did it twice for me and reflow chips almost every month :eek:

.GPUs are pretty expensive, god bless those whom invented ebay :tongue:

. But it was really a pain replacing these units several time and GPU are very expensive too :cry2:

It's due to a bad design that causes catastrophic damages.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 16

fivebyfive

Original post by Azhar Rana

I used to own a HP pavilion DV6000, It was a worst laptop HP has ever made. I have had to replace the GPU four times, hp did it twice for me and reflow chips almost every month :eek:

.GPUs are pretty expensive, god bless those whom invented ebay :tongue:

. But it was really a pain replacing these units several time and GPU are very expensive too :cry2:

It's due to a bad design that causes catastrophic damages.

Thanks for the replies everyone, much appreciated. It is a samsung np r720. Tried without CD drive and USB. I will try connecting to tv, but the hdmi light is off too.