UKC

Came to turn my computer on this morning and it appears something is broken. The power light and WiFi indicator is showing and the fan whirrs for a moment but nothing is being displayed on screen and there's no sound coming from the HDD. I've removed the RAM and checked both RAM slots.
I've got most things backed up but really need it not to be borked! Anything else I can try before I throw it in the bin?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Well don't throw it in the bin because of a dead hard drive. Open the side and turn the computer on, put your hand on the HDD. Is it spinning up? If not, take out the cables and put em back in again and give it another shot. If still nothing, the drive is dead, replace it.

In reply to Removed User:
I've tried two other HDDs I know work and they aren't working either. I'm not even getting the BIOS options. Could it be the processor?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

When you power it on is it actually staying on? Does the CPU fan continue to spin? Or is it powering on for a second and then dying?

If the power is staying on it's more likely to be the motherboard than the cpu, though you'd have to take it into a shop for someone to test that for you.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Is there any bleeping noise

In reply to Removed User:

The power light stays on but the fan cuts out after a few moments.

In reply to itsThere:

No bleeps or anything.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Do you have a spare power supply unit?

And if you disconnected everything except a single RAM chip and graphics, can you boot into the BIOS?

In reply to The Lemming:
So, disconnect battery, HDD and leave one RAM chip in and turn on using power cable?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Sounds pooped. Since there is non bleep code it's not getting to the bios on startup. So this leaves the CPU, mobo or internal psu. If it was the ram there would be a series of bleeps to tell you. Unless it was bad ram but it would still boot and then blue screen.

Is it turning itself off?
If it's a laptop is it charging?

Sometimes there is a fan error but this is often post bios, you could try giving it a Hoover.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Sounds like the GPU or a component on the board, MOSFET or similar. What model is it? Some are prone to these type of problems

In reply to wilkie14c:
If it was a GPU there would be a bleep code from the bios

In reply to wilkie14c:

HP Compaq CQ62

In reply to itsThere:





It had recently been giving me warnings that my memory was low.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


Start off with the bare minimum, so that you can see if the bios scrolls up on the screen and you get a blinking cursor.
This will give you:

a power supply unit
a Mother Board
a Central Processing Unit
a Graphics card (provided that it is not part of the mother board.

The fun part will be guessing which of those four has died.

In reply to itsThere:


That would be provided there was a speaker on the mother board to begin with.

In reply to itsThere:

Sometimes, sometimes not (most often not) The b in bios stands for basic. Laptops do not have a hardware function check programmed in the bios, only that they are there. Having repaired dozens of faulty GPUs that gave a whole host of various symptoms the only common one being no video.

OP - HP laptops are prone to faulty GPU's and it is well documented. NVidia chips being the very worst. Reballing can sometimes helps but only because the heat reseats the chip on the substrate, not because of a fault with the solder balls. It will most likely go again. *if this is the case the only solution is a new chip and with labour and postage of your motherboard backwards and forwards you have to decide if a second hand board off ebay is easier.

Anyways, until a faulty GPU is confirmed this is all irrelevant

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

item number:
400725387061

£52.00

In reply to wilkie14c:

Didn't realise it was a laptop.

My bad.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Yes they do have hardware tests and beep codes. It's part off the bios if they want it to. My Dell had them and HP documents it here

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01732674&cc=us&...

Assuming it is the GPU it's still worth cracking it open and cleaning out all the dust but not the thermal paste first befor spending 50 quid.

Is it starting up and staying on with a blank screen?

In reply to itsThere:

You are going to be insisting you are correct no matter what I suspect so I'm out. I'll go back to rebuilding the HP DV9000 laptop in the workshop that had a failed GPU (NVidia) with no video (and no beep code)

Cheers

In reply to itsThere:




Yeah, the light on the power button stays on, the fan kicks in but goes off soon after. There's absolutely nothing on the screen so no BIOS options.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Without having spares you can swap in / out to diagnose the problem, you are likely to struggle here. Probably worth taking to a local PC repair shop for a diagnosis. It won't necessarily be an expensive fix but at least you will find out.