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.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
Hellow Laptop Freak, I need help to get past the bios password of a toshiba Qosmio F30,the previous owner passed on and nobody in the family knows the password, any ideas? Thanks in advance!
July 1st, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Shantanu Majumder,
Try this. Turn on the laptop and press F8 when Acer logo appears on the screen. Try booting the laptop with Last Known Good Configuration.
If Last Known Good Configuration doesn’t work, try Safe Mode. If you can boot in Safe Mode, use System Restore utility and recover the laptop back to the previous restore point.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
NP,
Could be memory related problem. Do you have two memory modules installed? Try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each memory module separately.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
John,
Did you try turning on the laptop when the hard drive is removed? Can you boot to the POST screen without the hard drive installed? I’m thinking maybe the hard dive is bad and it’s halting the whole system.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
JC,
This The lights will stay on for a bit, then blink off and usually come back on. sounds like a problem with the motherboard.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I have a acer (Aspire 5310 ) scince morning it is not booting properly.The problem is like it is bootin but in the time of showing the desktop it starts rebooting? this is happing.what should i do?
June 29th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hi, i need some help,i have a nec versa rxi,750 mhz,when i power it on,the power light comes on the lights flash and then the hard drive light stays on perment,the screen remains blank, and i have tried an external monitor again nothing but the fan does run however if i put a cd in the drive the cd light flicker and the drive spins up,(if i took the chip out ,the cd drive does not work at all)i have tried the cpu in another machine all ok, and i have tried the ram in another machine too again all ok, i have checked the usb port for power and there is a 5v present,i get no post or even a bleep.If i plug the charger in the battery charges perfectly and the machine runs on the battery fine and when it gets low the battery light goes green to orange, but somtimes when i power it up with the adapter all the lights stay on,and when i powerdown and switch again on all the lights flash and the hard drive light will turn on after 10 seconds and stay on. Now heres the odd bit if i power on the music section (seperate button) the speakers click and the small nuber lcd lights up and i can put a music cd in and it plays fine and i can skip to differnt tracks and adjust the volume using the thumbwheel,so i my thinking this machine is not totaly dead,i just need to get some ideas on what the fault could be,even took the screen apart and there is a 14v supply to the inverter,but i can only assume there must a trigger line for the screen to turn on,i am good with electronics but not that good, i dont mind in getting the soldring iron out,please help,thanks john
June 18th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I have a Dell Inspiron 6400. First I’ll let you know what happened. While my wife was watching a video (using Media Direct) she paused for approx 5 mins. Screen was then locked w/o curser and I couldn’t figure out how to unfreeze (obviously I tried everything I could think of btw she was on battery power and had been for approx 20 mins). So I held off button till it turned off. Never ran again. The computer w/not boot. When pressing the off/on (to boot computer) the green light lights but never does the amber or charge light. Also when I plugged in the transformer (the one supplied w/the unit from Dell) green charge light sometimes flashes briefly…then nothing. It doesn’t matter whether I am using battery power or AC..nothing happens. I have tried the things I’ve seen on the net (re-seat the memory, wiggle connector, hold power on for a while…btw at one point this did act like it was charging the battery as it was flashing amber,amber,amber then green, but neve r did the battery appear to be charged. This computer not abused, rarely used on battery power and is mostly stock from Dell w/o any upgrades (done by me) except for a wire mouse addition. Any help available of further suggestions. Hopefully I’ve been complete in my description.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:02 am
i have a toshiba A200 it is completey effed =/ it only come up with the starting screen saying windows xp n then freezes, it will not go beyond that =/ i have tried safe mode and have done the system restore but it does not work. the VAG mode does not work also, please help
May 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Hiya,
I’m having a problem with an HP Pavilion dv6000. The thing is barely over a year old, and never had any problem(other than coming with Vista, meh!). Yesterday, I went to turn it on, to no avail. If you hold down the power button, the lights will come on. The fan starts up after a short bit, and stays on for maybe two seconds before going off. The lights will stay on for a bit, then blink off and usually come back on. Sometimes the fan will run for a couple seconds again, sometimes not. The hard drive never spins. I’ve tried running off just battery, or just AC. Tried removing the hard drive. It does the exact same thing with no drive in. Swapped RAM around, removed optical drive and stripped down to one RAM chip. Nothing. I’m not sure where to go from here. Considering unplugging from the LCD and going straight into an external, just to see. Any ideas? Thanks a bunch.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Lal,
Did you try moving the memory module from one slot to another? It’s possible that the memory slot you are using right now is defective.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I have toshiba tecra A3-S611. Same problem, does not boot when I start after shut down or does not re-start when window asks to re-start after I install some new software. Even on Standby mode or Hibernate mode, does not goes to window at all. All I do is to keep laptop in logoff mode once I login it goes back to windows with no problem. Bought new adapter from Toshiba and new RAM but nothing helped. If motherboard is bad then why it goes back to windows during login/logoff mode ? Somtimes I have noticed if I shut down and re-start if I shake laptop slowly up and down it powers up to windows. Sometimes it trys to power up and Toshiba logo comes up in slow motion mode starts with dim light and slowly slowly shines with normal light but freezes right after it.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
najeeb,
If memory and hard drive pass test without any problem, apparently your problem is related to the motherboard. There is not much I can do without looking at the laptop.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Justin,
I think you have a problem with the motherboard. I posted your question here.
April 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I have a satellite p15 s409, and as a result of a virus, everytime I turn it on, it asks me for a bios password which I don’t have. Is there anything I could do to fix it myself? I’m in the interior of Brazil where appropriate service ia scarce. Thanks a lot.
Rob
April 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hello laptopfreak,
I have compaq presario v3000 laptop. Some times it is not booting. I checked the RAM – removed and replaced, run memtest86 , checked the HDD – hitachi tester , removed and refixed the HDD-
removed the battary and tried to boot in direct powersupply . but some times the laptop is not booting
I am not even getting the intitial boot screen – POST screen .
SOme times if I goto BIOS the HDD inforations are not here .
apparently some times the laptop boots up and work without any probles
I’ve XP loaded in the laptop and checked the HDD from XP also – no problems
it has a AMD dula core 64 bit processor
the fan is also working
can you help ?
Thnaks
Najeeb
April 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Hi, I have a Toshiba Satellite A135-S2266. I will not start up. when i push the power button the little light above it comes on. the CD/DVD drive will run and the fan will to. But nothing will come up on the screen. I have used a external screen and nothing has happened. I have swiched the ram with good ones and nothing. I have taken the batery out and tried AC power and nothing. I do not have a hard drive in it. but t thought it should boot to the bio. but it dose not. Do you need a hard drive for it to boot? I have had one other Toshiba that had a bad Mother bored in it but i got lucky and got it fixed for free. Can you help Me?
March 31st, 2008 at 10:22 am
I have a sony Vaio that will not boot all the way. With the battery in or out it looks as if it is starting windows, then the screen goes blank except for cursor. I can move the cursor but can not do anything else at all.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I have a HP ZD8000.. When i hit the power button, nothing happends. The blue lights are on when plugged in, just doesnt do anything at all.. I think I “MAY” know what happend. It started after we had a bad storm, but the power was connected to surge protector – however the network cable was not protected. Any ideas if this is power supply, network card or most likely motherboard?
Thanks,
Jim
March 20th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Seems a few people have problems like mine. I have an HP Pavillion DV6000 laptop that I purchased just about a year ago. It has bee nworking great this entire time untilo today. While I was filling a form out on a website it locked up hard. I tried doing a hard reboot only to have it unable to boot up again. It would go into a cycle of starting up, try to read the DVD drive and then try to read the hard drive. At that point it would shut down and restart the cycle. I tried putting an OS disk into the DVD ROM to see if it would boot from that but had no luck with that either. Any help would be appreciated.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:03 am
TOSHIBA QOSIMO WILL NO LONGER BOOT AFTER FITTING NEW HDD
Recently my Toshiba Qosmio G10 hard disk died. As a result I trundled off to my local computer shop who expalined that all I would need is a new HDD and then just recover the OS with the Toshiba Recovery Media.
So I went ahead and bought the new HDD and after installing and running through the recovery process the PC looked ok however when it tried to boot it very quickly flashes up a blue screen which is so quick I cant even read and then the laptop keeps rebooting in this fashion. Please Help ????
I have tried a number of different things
1) tried booting in HDD slot 2 and still no sucess
2) nothing in the BIOS indicates any problem
3) tried to modify the sysprep.ini looked up something in the MS tech site which says something about SYSPREP MASS STORAGE CONTROLLER
If anyone can help I would be so so grateful!!
Regards
S
February 24th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite A65-s1065 and it stops booting when it reaches the point of loading the display drivers. It is ATI graphics based. Ive tried to boot normally and in safe mode and each time it fails to load the ATI graphics drivers. Tried to re-install Windows XP and same porblem. XP instalation fails.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Hi,
I have a Toshiba M52 laptop and the screen flickers when the PCMCIA card is inserted. My PCMCIA Card is a Toshiba TypeII HDD. It recently began after I removed and then re-inserted the PCMCIA. Its now chronic.
Any comments?
Thanks
t—
December 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Is this really MOBO issue ?
Toshiba Tecra A3 – S611 win XP Pro. ( No warranty anymore ).Freezes when built-in wireless card swith turns on. Do not boot when shut down or re-start. Used to boot back to windows from Standby mode, now stop doing it. All LED’s are on, fan spins, cd spins, hard drive lights comes on, but screen remains blank. NO BIOS, NO TOSHIBA logo. Changed RAM from one slot to other nothing happens. If shut down, turn power on/off several times till luck comes with u and it boots. Any comments or repair advice ?
November 20th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
For the guy talking about his Qosmio F10 having issues… Qosmio had a recall on their original Mobo, and replaced the systemboard for free, plus gives it an upgrade. You might want to contact them.
- John
November 17th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Dawson,
Replacing the motherboard will not erase any files on the hard drive. BUT when you sending your laptop to Toshiba you have to mention that your data is IMPORTANT and they cannot reimage the hard drive. Make it clear, maybe even put a sticky note with instructions NOT TO ERASE the hard drive.
Yes it’s possible but I think it would kill the AC adapter fist, not the motherboard.
I don’t think so. If the battery is still charged, it should provide enough power even when the AC adapter is unplugged. Just in case, you can find a voltmeter and test the AC adapter. If the adapter outputs correct voltage, most likely there is nothing wrong with the adapter.
Your laptop will not start at all, right? You even cannot see the initial Toshiba logo on startup, right? That’s mean you cannot boot it in DOS. There is no secret key to do that.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Ok so I tried removing the battery and turned it on with just AC power. Same result. It will power on but nothing will boot. The cd tray will open and try to read cds and everything but windows vista will not boot. I took the hardrive out and tried and still same result. It didnt boot. I tried switching the memory up into different slots and still some result…SHOCKING! So basically I got the same result from all the things you told me to do. And you said if nothing works then its my motherboard and I have to get it serviced. Please just tell me that means I won’t loose any of my files. Quick question. My room mate told me that we had a couple power failures while I was on a mission the other day. Is it possible maybe when power was returned it was too much for the computer to handle? Is it possible the laptop is not getting enough power to boot up but just enough to power the cd tray and to light up the power indicator light? What do I press in order to get my laptop to run DOS. Just let me know ANYTHING you would do before I ship it to Toshiba. I need to know every possible scenario. Thank you so much for your help. Hope to hear back from you soon. Thanks again.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Hi Laptop Freak ,
Thanks for ur reply and m sorry for responding so late. The memory module removal thing dint work. I showed it to soemone and he said some IC for video gets heated up when the lappy is switched on..and so it needs a motherboard replacement…Can u suggest something more.
Thanks in advance..
P.S: do u have a yahoo chat id or something so that I can discuss this with u and explore all possible options..At present my lappy is lying almost dead,,
November 15th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Thanks guys for getting back to me so quickly. I’ll try and do what you said tonight and if it doesn’t work out I go home for R&R leave in a month for two weeks. I guess I can figure something out when I get home if I can’t get it fixed here. I’ll try and get back on here as soon as possible and let you know whats going on. Thank you so much for your help. You’ll hear from me soon.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Dawson,
First, unplug the laptop from the AC adapter and remove the battery. Wait for 1 minute, then plug the AC adapter and try turning it on.
Second, check the memory. Try reconnecting the memory module, remove if from the memory slot and install back. If you have two memory modules in your laptop, try removing them one by one. Try installing different memory modules into different slots. It’s possible that one of the modules is bad, or it’s not making a good contact with the slot.
Third, remove the hard drove and try starting the laptop without it. If the laptop starts with video when the hard drive is removed but has no video when the hdd is installed, most likely you have a bad hard drive.
If nothing helps, it’s possible that you have a problem with the motherboard and have to ship your laptop in for service.
Here’s a disassembly guide for Satellite P205, it will help you to find the hard drive with memory.