so now this is happening.

[dira]

This morning in the midst of my standard morning LJ-check, my laptop shut down. Just, went dark and stopped. It wasn't hot, there was no power disruption, and no error message. Now when I press the power button the power light and caps lock/number lock/other thing I can't identify that isn't wifi lights come on, stay on for two or three seconds (long enough for the external hard drive to detect the computer is turned on and start up) and then go out. Nothing else. I thought maybe the screen did the subtle flash from "turned off" to "turned on but showing black" and then back but it's pretty bright in my living room so it's kind of hard to tell.

ETA: Computer is three years and two months old and therefore, naturally, two months out of the longest-available warranty, which I dutifully bought so that this would not happen until right now.

Anybody have any ideas about what this might be and whether it might be fixable and, if fixable, how long it might take and oh god how much it might cost?

/o\

Comments

[allegraconbrio]

This is literally a shot in the dark, but I've been able to sort of re-boot a Sony Vaio laptop and an HP Pavillion by taking out the battery, unplugging the laptop, letting it sit for 60 seconds or so and then pressing the power button (while it is not being powered) for 45-60 secs. Then plug in the laptop and press the power button. If it comes on then put the battery back in. I don't know why it works. I found the fix by googling when this happened to me.

[owlectomy]

Sounds like it could be a battery problem, in which case it would be fairly inexpensive to fix.

[dira]

No joy with that one, alas. :(

[dira]

Nope, I've been through dead batteries, dead power cords, and dead internal power source/converter things. This is none of those.

[allegraconbrio]

Darn, it was worth a try. I am sorry it didn't work. I am also out of ideas. This stuff always happens right after the warranty ends. :(

[mrshamill]

Here via fox because she knows I can't resist computer hardware questions -- have you tried booting it without the battery in it? Conversely, have you tried booting it with only the battery in it? Because that sounds like a power issue to me. Often times a surge will burn out a battery or a power brick and cause these types of problems.

What type of laptop is it? With some, you can do a 'hard reset' by removing the battery and the power cord and pressing the power button for a timed thirty seconds. You might try that. Another resource is Major Geeks, a message board where a lot of us go to play and where you might find very, very good information.

Good luck!

[dira]

Yup, tried both of those--I've had battery failures, power cord failures, and internal power source failures with this and past laptops, and this wasn't like any of 'em. It's a Dell Inspiron E1505, and as anything hardware-related is out of my ability to handle, I suspect it's off to the Geek Squad or someplace for further troubleshooting.

[mrshamill]

Ahhh, one of those. I'm almost a Dell certified tech, and I've worked on those stupid machines. Here's a Dell test that will give you a clue on what's wrong --

remove the hard drive,optical drive,memory modules,and battery.Then hold the power button and the fn key down for 10 seconds,if all the lights(Caps lock,Scroll lock,Num lock,not the wifi) across the front of the system blink(power light should stay lit also).Your MOBO and or video card need to be replaced

If they don't blink, it should reset your system and you should be good to go... for a while. But the fact that it's not booting means one of the two pieces (the mobo or the video card) is going. Luckily, they're easy to replace and shouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

Hoped that helped.

[sage]

oh meep! I hope you find a solution that works.

[dira]

Yyyyeah, as I said, I don't mess with hardware, so this is the point where I find some nice pros to do that for me and tell me what it means. :)

[dira]

Me too! *fingers crossed*

[petronia]

A word of thanks from a complete stranger passing by - I've had a dead XPS M1330 sitting around for two months now with a similar problem (boots irregularly from wall power, keeps rebooting and won't turn back off once on, doesn't boot or run off battery), and will be trying this test. XD;

[mahoni]

We have an HP laptop that did that a couple of months ago. I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and they said that either some piece of hardware (I *think* they said the motherboard) was going, or we had a virus. It turned out we had several viruses (long story; suffice it to say I was angry but not surprised). I was glad because that fix only (that's an ironic 'only') cost somewhere between $150 - $200, whereas the other would have been MUCH more expensive.

[dira]

I'm pretty sure I had the virus version of this problem two or three laptops back--popped a Norton Antivirus disc into the drive and it started up like a charm, right where it had shut down. Unfortunately I think it's hardware this time. :(

[mlyn]

After reading the post and then mrshamill's comments, I'm thinking it's your MOBO. :( IANAExpert, but it sounds like the known-glitch I have with my motherboard in my laptop.

You might look into some how-to tutorials online for replacing your motherboard. It's cheaper than taking it to an expert (plus you get to shop for your own hardware and find the best price), empowering to do it yourself, and with a PC, probably pretty easy. (I say this last because a friend helped me replace a hard drive in my Mac laptop, and when I tell computer nerds that, they look at me with awe. Macs are frigging difficult to disassemble.)

Let me reiterate: cheaper than taking it to an expert. Even if you know what the problem is and just tell some Geek Squad guy that you know what needs to be done, they'll charge you for the gas it takes them to drive back to the store with it.

[dira]

Well, the Geek Squad guy I took it to didn't charge me for diagnosing that, yep, that sure is a dead mobo, at least. And then he quoted me a possible repair price range of $300-900 and offered to recover my data, and I took my dead computer and fled.

And ... no. I know my limits, and I do not mess with hardware.

[mlyn]

Well, damn. At least you didn't lose any data. If you're replacing the computer, I would have Geek Squad remove the hard drive and either put it in the new computer or put it in an enclosure as an external drive, so you don't lose any of your shit.

Sorry to hear about it.

[dira]

My brother's actually going to do the data recovery for me, so that part's all right.