Hi all,

I've been given a laptop to fix. The problem is that it's not booting, it's not even getting to POST and it also gets rather warm.
I've sat here and looked at it, and the hdd activity light blinks a little, so I'm wondering if the screen/gfx card may just have died and the heat was always there but only recently noticed.

I've hooked the laptop up to an external monitor and had no joy there, I was wondering if anyone has any other ideas. The thing might be dead altogether, but I'd like to rule out all possibilities.

Many thanks,

Ben

Cold reset is worth trying.

Take both mains and battery out, hold down power button for about 10 seconds, plug mains back in, see if it posts.

Solves about 50% of calls I get with roughly those symptoms.

I had a machine bought to me recently with a similar problem, but with no heat.

Flashing the BIOS did the trick.

Heat problems? Blast all the vents/fans with compressed air. Dust can cause overheating and shutdowns. (Though I'll admit it shouldn't overheat so quickly that it won't post).

Thanks all,

I though I had replied to Jon...I tried doing a cold reset but to no avail...I'll have a look at a BIOS flash and blasting the air vents...

It is possible if the cooler has been detached. Although the cooler on a laptop is usually a contact plate, attached to heatpipes, secured by screws around the cpu socket - so they are normally very secure.

I took it apart this morning, I think the CPU just gets warm (AMD Turion X2).

I think the unit is dead, CMOS battery taken out for an hour, cold resets, all screws are tight and everything plugged in. I reckon a new laptop or a new logic board.

Cheers for everyone's suggestions