# Laptop stopped working



## thoron (Feb 4, 2011)

My laptop is a HP Pavillion dv6000, OS is Widows Vista 32-bit

I'm on YIM and suddenly the screen freezes, there's horizontal lines behaving similar to static, the mouse wont move, when I did an emergency shutdown (holding the power button down, it shuts off. When I went to turn it back on, I get the stabdard windows was not shut down proporely screen. I choose to open windows normally. It goes to the loading screen then the horizontal static returns and freezes. I hold the power button down again, and turn it back on, and now it won't stay on. It startes up for a second then shuts down again. now it keeps turning on and shutting down. If I unplug it and have the batteries removed it stays shut off. If I put them back in it will stay stut off until I try to turn it back on again, then it returns to the cycle of shutting down and turning on, untill I remove the batteries and unplug it. Please help in any way possible. I felt the bottom and it wasn't burning hot, just warm like a laptop should be. The only things that I had open the time was IE7 on FA, my photo gallery, and YIM chat window.

One other thing I just noticed, if hold down keys located over the hard drive it stays on, but then it does nothing after that, the screen doesn't light or anything. I'm assuming the symbol for the hard drive is the little mark that is three disks on top of each other. The light above that mark shows no activity. I'm hoping to at least be able to salvage the data from my laptop.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 4, 2011)

Sounds like it could still be heat-related, or it could be an issue with memory or the graphics chipset. That said, the freezing and refusing to start up immediately after is usually very much heat. It's entirely possible that one of the portions of the heat sink assembly has come up off the graphics chipset; You wouldn't feel the heat from that, since it wouldn't be pulling the heat into the heatsink (which is what is mostly the warmth you feel at the bottom of the laptop). You should check to be sure that the fans are running, just in case, and that the vents aren't clogged with dust. If you have any compressed air, you should give it a once-over with it to make sure.

At this point, since the machine won't boot, you're stuck with trying that for the most part. I'd say shut it down and leave it for a while before trying to turn it on again, just to see if letting it cool down has any positive effect. At the very least, your hard drive SHOULD be alright, since it really doesn't sound like a hard drive issue.


----------



## thoron (Feb 4, 2011)

well, it's not a heat issuse. It's been left to cool since last night, and is still doing the same thing. If I hold down some of the button, it won't shut off, but it won't continue, all thats there is a black screen. One thing I did notice is that the drive light isn't blinking. So I'm assuming theres no disc activity of any sort.


----------



## theLight (Feb 4, 2011)

Edit for personal security.


----------



## thoron (Feb 4, 2011)

theLight said:


> Overall malfunction of some piece in your laptop probably caused a much larger problem on your mobo.


 
Probably, it happened rather suddenly, considering how I turned my back for a minute, and it freezes for the first time in my almost 4 years of owning it.
That laptop would have been 4 years old if it had made it to the end of May.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 4, 2011)

In that case, it sounds like it's either a memory (RAM) issue or a motherboard/graphics chipset issue. You can try to narrow it down if your laptop has more than one memory module by taking one out, swapping ports, etc and seeing if that works. If you can get it to boot from a CD, you can grab a copy of Memtest86+ and give it a scan. One complete pass should be enough to confirm whether or not there's a serious issue (and in this case, more than likely it would be fairly apparent). Any errors mean likely bad RAM.


----------



## theLight (Feb 4, 2011)

Edit for personal security.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 4, 2011)

theLight said:


> Thing is, if it were just a simple non-mobo hardware issue, wouldn't the mobo still POST at the very least?


 
Nope. Bad RAM can cause a failure to POST, same with a bad video card or a bad processor. It's rarer to have RAM and video cause it to not POST at all, but it happens. Motherboard issues are difficult to troubleshoot unless you've got experience with it, so the best thing to do is first to rule everything else out.


----------



## thoron (Feb 4, 2011)

Runefox said:


> In that case, it sounds like it's either a memory (RAM) issue or a motherboard/graphics chipset issue. You can try to narrow it down if your laptop has more than one memory module by taking one out, swapping ports, etc and seeing if that works. If you can get it to boot from a CD, you can grab a copy of Memtest86+ and give it a scan. One complete pass should be enough to confirm whether or not there's a serious issue (and in this case, more than likely it would be fairly apparent). Any errors mean likely bad RAM.



What version do I use? Do I use the prebootable version?


----------



## Runefox (Feb 4, 2011)

thoron said:


> What version do I use? Do I use the prebootable version?


 
Yeah, the pre-compiled ISO; Burn the ISO to a disc like you would any ISO, using the burning software of your choice. You can also use a USB key, but I haven't dealt with that before, personally.


----------



## thoron (Feb 9, 2011)

From looking around a few forums such as cnet, and chatting with a friend who is fairly knowlegable with computers, its poibting to the motherboard failing. Either way I'm getting a new laptop. Thats the last time I deal with HP, hopefully a Dell won't suffer the same problem.


----------



## thoron (Feb 10, 2011)

The new laptop comes with afree one year subscription for McAfee which I do not want. How do I go about removing an AV program? I heard that not removing it properly can cause problems.


----------



## Hir (Feb 11, 2011)

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507


----------



## ArmedSargent117 (Feb 20, 2011)

I had an hp dv9000 that lasted around 4 years, similar problem to what you have (it sounds like). Believe it was an Nvidia chipset for the graphics, and that's what was making my computer fail (again what you described was very similar to how mine had died). Had looked into it and most of the graphics cards for laptops are integrated onto the mobo. Do your research carefully and you should get one that will last a while. As for the antivirus, if it isn't norton antivirus you should be ok on removing it, though if an antivirus program has issues installing and nothing seems off, I'd consider looking into whether or not that preinstalled antivirus has a known "issue" of needing a visit to the registry to remove it completely.
Hope I helped.


----------



## thoron (Feb 20, 2011)

ArmedSargent117 said:


> I had an hp dv9000 that lasted around 4 years, similar problem to what you have (it sounds like). Believe it was an Nvidia chipset for the graphics, and that's what was making my computer fail (again what you described was very similar to how mine had died). Had looked into it and most of the graphics cards for laptops are integrated onto the mobo. Do your research carefully and you should get one that will last a while. As for the antivirus, if it isn't norton antivirus you should be ok on removing it, though if an antivirus program has issues installing and nothing seems off, I'd consider looking into whether or not that preinstalled antivirus has a known "issue" of needing a visit to the registry to remove it completely.
> Hope I helped.



Currently I've got a Dell Inspiron with an Intel graphics card, I'm not sure how long that will last me, hopefully a long time. Might I ask what kind of issues there are with uninstalling Norton? Its what is on my dead laptop, and I'm trying to decide if I should move my subscription over on to my new one.


----------



## Thou Dog (Feb 21, 2011)

I don't know any issues with uninstalling Norton. However, if it does, visit: http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20080710133834EN&ln=en_US


----------



## Runefox (Feb 21, 2011)

Thou Dog said:


> I don't know any issues with uninstalling Norton. However, if it does, visit: http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20080710133834EN&ln=en_US


 
Actually, I recommend uninstalling Norton with that, period. Norton's regular uninstaller leaves a lot of crap behind, in some cases even executables and services. While there'll probably be some folders and registry keys left behind even so, the NRT is a way more reliable way of doing things. Hell, same goes with McAfee and MCPR.


----------



## ArmedSargent117 (Feb 22, 2011)

thoron said:


> Currently I've got a Dell Inspiron with an Intel graphics card, I'm not sure how long that will last me, hopefully a long time. Might I ask what kind of issues there are with uninstalling Norton? Its what is on my dead laptop, and I'm trying to decide if I should move my subscription over on to my new one.


 
Been a bit since I dealt with norton, but yeah, Runefox is right, norton can leave crap behind on your machine. If I were you I'd probably just uninstall it, and put something else in. I currently run AVG (free), and it hasn't been problematic, so meh. Only advice I got is that you should always becareful around stuff like norton, they tend to make things a pain to uninstall cleanly.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 22, 2011)

I personally recommend against AVG because it's caused a number of issues in the past (focus stealing games, issues with Outlook/Exchange integration/update failures), general apathy towards customers, etc. Avast! I find is a lot better, and also much faster and lighter. Both are good AV products, of course, but I find that Avast! is a lot nicer.


----------

