Laptop seems borked.

Terry

Advent 9115

Will not boot.
On occasion the start screen will show up, but it doesn't get further than that.

I tried an external monitor, but nothing happened.
There doesn't appear to be any physical damage on the motherboard.

The last time I got the screen to come on, the words displayed were in an Asian language.

I put in a new CMOS battery too. No luck there.

humbert

Fuck me Terry, assumed you were dead or had closed your account or something.

Tried swapping the ram chips? Random behaviour like that makes me suspicious of ram. Don't know if it's true for all motherboards but mine has a primary and secondary slot so perhaps a low address on the primary chip is corrupt?

Oh, had a CMOS battery failure and it just meant a clock reset after each boot but, again, don't know if that varies by model.

Terry

I was dead for 72 hours a couple of months back, but don't tell anyone. They'll think I'm a magician or something.

Anyway, I checked the RAM. That's not the problem. There is only one slot on this model, but I think that was just to keep the cost down. They could have had the two slots. The room is there.

riclad

Try f8 safe mode,windows ,boot,
i had same problem with a pc .
i removed the cmos battery for ten minutes .
Came back 5 hours later ,pc rebooted as normal.
TRY remove the battery, main battery, not cmos one,
press power down for 60 seconds .
Try another ram chip, even if its only 500meg ram.

Terry

Tried all those things. It's not getting past post on the rare occasion that the screen comes on.

Anyway, I just remembered that I lent a laptop to one of my lodgers, and it's compatible with the RAM in this laptop.
Going to check the RAM in that and make sure that at least one of them is working.

Edit: RAM tested on another laptop, and it works.

free_man

Hi Terry,
I had similar problem with a laptop 4 yrs back. Turned out the graphics card was toast. I got a new laptop.

riclad

YOU could take out the drive, put it in a caddy, backup your data .Format
the drive, full format, fat32.
or Attach drive to pc using, sata power ,data cables.
From the dvd drive.
Put it on adverts.ie ,sold as is,for parts .
non working laptop.
Dual core 2gig ram laptop on adverts.ie ,average price is 120 euro.
Does the power light come on.
Is the power supply working ok.?
http://www.dban.org/
use this to erase personal data, passwords, credit card info etc from the drive.

the_syco

I could swing over with a laptop and a harddrive dock, with a copy of Knoppix on Wednesday eve?

The Knoppix live CD would check if the PC is okay or not; if it doesn't boot, you'll know it's borked. THe dock will allow you to grab files from the HDD if the HDD isn't borked.

riclad

IF you cant even turn on a laptop, acess the bios, its unlikely a linux live cd would work.
Take out the hardrive,
boot up the pc, does the bios load up.
press f2 or delete to acess the bios.
IT might be simpler, to sell it for parts, as is.
Erase all data off the drive first .

Noxin

This is gonna sound stupid but hang with me.

Turn the laptop on and wrap it up in a blanket. Tightly. Yes I'm dead serious. Make it snug as a bug in a rug.
Usually takes about 20-30 min but eventually the laptop will overheat and shut itself off but keep an eye on it anyway.
Once that happens, take it out and try boot it up.


Disclaimer: I am not responsible for your house burning down. I have told you to keep an eye on it :P

gugleguy

Noxin wrote: »

This is gonna sound stupid but hang with me.

Turn the laptop on and wrap it up in a blanket. Tightly. Yes I'm dead serious. Make it snug as a bug in a rug.
Usually takes about 20-30 min but eventually the laptop will overheat and shut itself off but keep an eye on it anyway.
Once that happens, take it out and try boot it up.


Disclaimer: I am not responsible for your house burning down. I have told you to keep an eye on it :P

I agree -seriously
Better than going to one of those pop-up so called expert laptop repair shops. I was all for this type of underdog but saw the light after one bad experience. The approved mobile phone repair agent by all Irish mobile service provider is not much better.

davo2001

If you're anywhere in the Limerick area I can give you a spare main board for this unit, mine is no longer used, faulty monitor but the board itself seems good.

Terry

the_syco wrote: »

I could swing over with a laptop and a harddrive dock, with a copy of Knoppix on Wednesday eve?

The Knoppix live CD would check if the PC is okay or not; if it doesn't boot, you'll know it's borked. THe dock will allow you to grab files from the HDD if the HDD isn't borked.

Thanks for the offer and the idea. I have all that stuff here, apart from the Knoppix, but I'll just download that and give it a go myself if the blanket think does anything.

riclad wrote: »

YOU could take out the drive, put it in a caddy, backup your data .Format
the drive, full format, fat32.
or Attach drive to pc using, sata power ,data cables.
From the dvd drive.

Tried all those things.

Put it on adverts.ie ,sold as is,for parts .
non working laptop.
Dual core 2gig ram laptop on adverts.ie ,average price is 120 euro.

Way ahead of you
http://www.adverts.ie/laptops/advent-9115-for-parts-or-repair/6001835

Does the power light come on.
Is the power supply working ok.?
http://www.dban.org/
use this to erase personal data, passwords, credit card info etc from the drive.

Yeah, the power light comes on. The in goes off for less than a second every minute or two.

To be honest, I'm not really pushed on this.
It belongs to a friend's brother. He already bought a new laptop, and was going to give this one to his 9 year old son, just so he could learn the basics about computers.
If it sells, he's just going to put the money towards a low end machine.

[quote=davo2001)If you're anywhere in the Limerick area I can give you a spare main board for this unit, mine is no longer used, faulty monitor but the board itself seems good.

Other side of the country, but thanks for the offer.

the_syco

riclad wrote: »

press f2 or delete to acess the bios.

Actually, do this. If it's borked in BIOS, it's borked full stop.

Terry

The screen did come on one time, and I tried to get into the BIOS. It has a small progress bar when going into BIOS. It got to the end of the bar and just froze.

Rucking_Fetard