Just recently my laptop stopped booting up all together
I have a Voodoo M515 laptop, about 1 year old. Just recently, it stopped booting up all together. I turn the power on, the fans engage and a few indicator lights come on. It is not even attempting to boot up. I have tried an external monitor. I called their tech support and they suggested it may have been the motherboard going bad. I replaced the motherboard and nothing was resolved, so I sent that board back. What is strange is that even when the power is ‘on,’ I am unable to even open the DVD/CD drive. I tried taking out one of the RAM bars because I was told that it would beep if that was the problem. It is apparently not, because nothing different happened. Could it be the processor or the video card? Maybe a power issue? I know that my battery isn’t holding a charge, it must be plugged in to function. The cost for me to send it back to Voodoo far supersedes the value of the laptop at this point. My only hope is to pinpoint the problem and do it myself, which would require a hearty nudge in the right direction. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
Here’s what you can try.
Make sure that the AC adapter outputs correct voltage. It’s possible that the adapter is bad and doesn’t provide enough power to boot up the laptop. Find a multimeter and test it. Try starting the laptop from the AC power without the battery installed. On most laptops the battery connects directly to the motherboard and if the battery fails badly, it might cause the entire system to stop booting.
Also it could be just a failed memory module. Who said that the laptop will beep if there is no memory? I’ve seen hundreds laptop and only few of them give you a beep error if the memory is missing. In most cases the laptop without memory module just will not boot up. I would recommend testing the laptop with a known good memory module. It can fix the problem. If you have two memory slots, move the memory module from the slot A into the slot B and test again.
Could it be the processor? Yes, it could be but from my experience laptop processors fail very rarely. I’ve been working with laptops for almost two years and repaired hundreds on them, but so far I’ve seen not more then 7-8 failed CPUs. May be I’m just lucky.
Could it be the video card? I don’t think so. You still should see some signs of life even with a failed video card. Not sure 100%.
When I have a laptop with a problem like yours and nothing help I usually take it apart completely and assemble it outside the laptop base. For this test I minimize the system as much as possible. Only three major parts are needed: the system board, the CPU (with cooling module) and the memory. After everything is connected, I hook up an external monitor, plug the AC adapter and turn it on. If I can boot the system with video output on the external screen then nothing is wrong with my major parts and I assemble the laptop back, testing after each step. If I cannot get any video and the system is still “dead”, then one of three major parts is damaged and here you just have to use test parts to find with one is failing. If you don’t have any spare parts, you’ll have to guess.
February 10th, 2007 at 2:51 am
One more thing, the memtest86 reports the ram type as 159mhz DDR318. It’s supposed to be DDR333, is it some voltage related problem?
February 10th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Problem #2:
I got the DC converter fixed so the laptop is working now. But another problem has came out two days after i got it back from assistance.
It works great for a couple of hours, using heavy memory/cpu programs (i work with Adobe Flex and Java). Then the screen gets all pixelated even though you can see the mouse moving and programs working in the background. The computer goes slow when that happens until it freezes, sometimes it gets back to normal for no reason.
I found this screenshot that pretty much looks like what i get: http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/screen0032fh.jpg
The site i got that image from describes this as an AGP problem when running games, but i am using 2D most of the time.
I have tried using different nvidia drivers, no success. I tested the memory modules with memtest86 and no errors where found. This happens on windows and linux, so i guess this is a hardware problem.
The weird thing is that sometimes i work all day without this problem, and sometimes it happens constantly. Yesterday i had to reboot about 10 times, while today (a cold day) this didn’t happen at all. The CPU temperature doesn’t go above 50C.
I think i need a priest.
February 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
JACK,
Here’s a solution for this problem, it should work for your laptop.
If you can run Knoppix and it works fine, probably there is nothing wrong with the motherboard, at least main circuits are functioning properly.
Get rid of the password and should be able boot from the floppy or CD. Install the operating system.
February 7th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Jay,
I think you are right, it could be a memory problem. It also might be a faulty motherboard, I’ve replaced hundreds of them. You purchased your Satellite M35X notebook in the United States, right? It’s not under warranty anymore, right? Check out this post, it’ll help you with your problem.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Hello Again,
My main problem is that the computer will not start up the FDD or Cd first. The only way to get to DOS is to remove the HDD. I tried to get into the Bios but it asks for a passwod that I never put into bios. I am the only owner of this computer. I took it to the Toshiba repair center, they looked at the computer for about 5 minutes then said my mother board was fried and the function key don’t work. I put in a Knoppix CD without the HDD installed the computer ran fine plus it detected the memory was work fine. I just can’t get the HDD to boot. The HDD light comes on for a few seconds then goes out. I know the HDD is ok because I ran it in my desktop with an adapter. Could Knoppix run on a computer with a fried motherboard? Thanks again for your quick response and sage advice.
Jack
February 7th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Dave,
Why do you think so? I’ve seen dead hard drives right out of the box. One of my customers replaced the hard drive three times in one month.
Yes, it could be a bad drive. Download and run Hitachi drive fitness test, make sure run an advanced test. If it fails, you’ll have to replace the hard drive.
February 7th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Hi. I’m having the worst problem. Without a clue as why, my Dell Inspirion 8100 won’t boot up. It gets the blue ‘Dell’ picture (always present at start of boot) and then screen goes black with a ‘unsupported memory module in Socket 1 was detected’ it says to remove the memory module and reboot. I tried. It does the same either way. I recently started using a VZ Access card from Verizon Wireless for Broadband access to the internet. It worked great for 2 weeks. I’m assuming where I push that pc card in is the socket 1? Can you tell me what to do? All the help online says to download ‘this test’ or ‘that test’ and go from there. But I can’t boot up the system, so I can’t download a dang thing!
This question and a possible solution has been published here.
February 7th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Pradeep,
but I would definitely run test on the laptop memory and hard drive. For memory test you can use Memtest86+ utility and for the hard drive use Hitachi’s drive fitness test. See if one of them comes up with errors.
I don’t know the exact solution
February 7th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Jack,
Run a memory test, you can use Memtest86+ utility.
it definitely can cause the problem. I’ve done it myself many times before and in some cases it might work. Windows goes through the device detection procedure and after rebooting the laptop it works fine. But in most cases if you trying boot a laptop with a hard drive from another laptop you’ll get some kind of error. You’ll get a BSOD error, it will reboot, lockup, etc…
February 6th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hi have a Toshiba M35X-S149 Laptop. When I go to start it up the light for the power comes on and it is blue. The fan runs for 6 sec. Then stops the light of the hard drive comes on of a sec. then goes off. There is nothing on the screen. The cd drive dose not run at all. It would start up after 1/2 Hour but now it takes about 15-30 hours is start up. I think that it is the Memory module but I only have one of them. I would like to kown what other people think of it. and if so the Memory Module way would it startup after his long?
Thank You
February 6th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
It turns out the DC converter was screwed… cost me some good money but it’s fixed now.
Thanks.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
hi my compaq laptop wont boot up, it says:
windows could not start because the following file is missing or currupt:
/system32/hal.d11
please re-install a copy of the above file.
so i ran the windows xp cd and it loads up then asks to set up windows xp now,press enter. when i press enter the following message appeared:
setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.
its only about 2 months old, and there cant be nothing rong with the harddrive.
this all happened when i ran system restore, however while it was restoring the battery of the laptop ran out so it switched off.
i rely appreciate it thanks
February 6th, 2007 at 4:13 am
dear sir
when i am pressing power on button power led blink green but display comes nothing some times display comes and system boot normally and work
pls tell me the exact solution
regards
prdeep shukla
mvc delhi
February 5th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hello Freak,
I have a Toshiba 1415-S173. My problem is that It will not boot up completely. at first it don’t start to boot when the power is turned on, I shut it down then power it back on, the screen comes up asking if I want to start in safe mode, safe mode with cd support, or start normally, If I press safe mode it starts going thru the file then stops, If I press normal it does nothing. I tested the harddrive by installing it in Another computer and it worked perfectlly. The OS was loaded on the hard drive from a separate computer then I installed it into the laptop could this cause the problem. Help Please. Thanks, Jack
February 4th, 2007 at 11:24 am
André Arruda,
Memory error?
You mentioned that you changed both memory modules for a working and tested ones but may be you have a faulty memory slot on the motherboard?
Try this. Test the laptop with both memory slots installed into the slot 1 first and then do the same with the slot 2. If the laptop works fine with both memory modules installed into one slot and fails with both modules installed into another, the second memory slot is faulty.
February 4th, 2007 at 6:32 am
The BIOS stops the boot if the LCD is not properly connected? The normal HDD reads during the system startup are not done, only a couple of reads when i turn on the notebook, meaning it’s not starting up the O.S..
If the note hangs when neither the LCD or an external monitor are connected, then it might be a good guess.
Oh, one thing that i have forgotten, sometimes it gives 3 short beeps (or a long one and 3 shorts, can’t remember).
I will be checking the cables tomorrow, the note is not here right now.
Thanks!
February 4th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Andre Arruda,
Try booting the notebook with an external monitor. If the external monitor works fine even though the internal screen doesn’t, you might have a loose video cable. In this case you’ll have to try reseating the video cable connector on the system board.
February 3rd, 2007 at 5:27 am
Hey there,
I recently purchased my friend’s HP ZV5000. He works beside me so i know he always took good care of it.
Yesterday when i turned it on in the morning the HDD and power lights would light up normally, the backlight came up but the HP logo wouldnt come up. After removing the battery, unplugging the AC, plugging it back in and putting the battery back in, it’d boot up normally after repeating this process a few times. When it booted the whole system was working perfectly. Then, when i rebooted only to make sure the problem was solved, the same problem came up. Then i got it booting again… in the next boot the backlight wasn’t lighting up anymore even though the lights were.
I changed both memory modules for working and tested ones.
Any idea what could be wrong? I tried booting every way possible (battery/AC, no battery/AC, battery/no AC). Since it worked fine a couple of times since i noticed that problem i am guessing it could be some internal contact problem.
February 3rd, 2007 at 2:16 am
I have an IBM Thinkpad T40. When I turn it on it flashes on the LEDs indicating power, but it does not boot. Sometimes it does and will work just fine. Sometimes it just freezes until I force shutdown by pressing the power button. It used to give me a message saying Windows has shutdown due to a device driver, ATI2DVAG. I downloaded the latest driver but this doesnt help. When starting, the fans whirm indicating they are at high speed. What could be the cause of this, please help.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Mike,
At this point it’s almost impossible to guess what is wrong with your notebook. To narrow down the problem it will be necessary to disassemble the notebook. Start removing devices one by one (battery, hard dive, DVD drive, wireless card, keyboard, etc…) and test the laptop after each step. See if you can get any signs of live.
To boot any laptop with video you need only three main parts: motherboard, processor and memory. If you turn on the laptop and nothing happens, most likely something is wrong with one of the main parts. I really cannot guess witch part is causing the problem without testing the laptop.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:50 am
No answer to my comment? I’ve been struggling with this laptop and it’s really getting on my nerves.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Thanks so much for your site. I have a Compaq R3000 that has been sitting idle for a while. It was having pop-up issues previously. I went to turn it on today to do some clean-up and it showed a screen that asked for a power-up password. We have never had one before and I am stumped. I did try unplugging and removing battery and then restarting with AC only. One search I found said to remove real time clock battery….where the heck is that? Thanks in advance!!
January 28th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Denyu,
There is no simple answer to your question. Usually when I have to troubleshoot a laptop like yours, I take it apart until I have a bare bone system which includes motherboard, processor and memory. I test the bare bone system with an external monitor and if it works fine, I start assembling the laptop back together piece by piece and test it after each plugged device or connector.
If the backlight works intermittently and you still can make out an image on the screen when the backlight goes off, then probably you have a faulty FL inverter board.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Hai … you’ve got great website here.
I have a problem with my Toshiba Tecra 8100, It won’t boot up and showing BIOS screen after I bring it around.
The power led was lid and showing power was connected, I have to pressed somewhere near lcd screen and upper left of the body some times it will boot up normally. It is annoying having a laptop but I can’t bring it everywhere. I know there is something loose…
May be from your experience you might give me a hint wich part should tighten or replace.
One more… sometimes the lcd backlight is dimmed perhaps is it something wrong with my F/L inverter board ?
January 25th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Luk,
I think you might have a stuck key and have to replace the keyboard. You can also try this. Disconnect the keyboard from the motherboard and start the laptop. If it boots to Windows without any problem when the keyboard is disconnected, most likely you have a bad keyboard.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Hi,I have Toshiba sattelite laptop, when i restart it or turn it on, most of the times it goes to bios screen and produce continues beep untill i hit any key,then i always check for any changes in the bios and make sure it boot fist from HDD, but when i save changes it still will go back there or not depends on how it feels , sometimes it doesn’t go there. I have flashed the bios and put latest vision the problem still there,also there is no any problem in windows xp once it boots up. please help me with any idea here, thanks in advance.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Jordan,
I think you might have a bad hard drive. Test it with Hitachi’s drive fitness test and see if it passes. The following method also can help you to narrow down the problem. Remove the hard drive from the laptop and boot the laptop from a live Linux CD (I usually use Knoppix). If the laptop boots fine with the Linux CD and works without any problem with Linux, probably there is nothing wrong with the laptop hardware except the hard drive. It’s not necessary to know Linux in order to use the CD, it will boot the laptop into Windows-like environment.
January 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Mickey,
I think you might have a bad power adapter. Check out this post. Vivian had exactly the same problem with his laptop and fixed it by replacing the power adapter (comment 2). Before you buy a new adapter, test the old one with a voltmeter, just to make sure it’s “dead”. If the adapter is not bad and outputs correct voltage, then most likely you have a “dead” motherboard.
January 21st, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Im not exactley sure of all the specs on the computer but heres whats been going on. As far as i can see the computer is totally stock. When i boot it only gets as far as past the first Toshiba splash screen before it wont go any further. It just sits there with the cursor blinking in the upper left hand corner. When i put in the windows disc to Re-install it boots the disc and then says checking system hardware and then it just sits there at a blank screen. I went into the Bios and made sure it detected the HDD. I cant seem to figure out whats wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Brian,
I think you still can get a free repair from Toshiba. Check out comment 8 in this post. Just take the laptop to an authorized repair center and most likely they will fix it at no charge. Let me know how it goes, any information will be very useful. You can post your experience here. I think a lot of people even don’t know about this class action suit.