HP craptops: Black screens and blinking cps/num lock

ziznak · December 02, 2012, 07:45:39 PM

My main machine has yet again threw itself some sort of little bitch fit and decided to stop working... its on strike I guess. I've already researched the issue and read a ton of other tech advice but I'd like to throw it out to you guys n see what cha think bout it.

Here's the issue. My HP 6735b will turn on showing all of the usual lights around the keyboard. The screen stays pitch black as in no backlight on with nothing on the screen. The hard drive starts up the dvdrw spins and all of the usual POST stuff seems to happen but as far as I can tell its not actually booting into windows or even getting to the BIOS.

The one clue that I have is the number of times that the caps lock and num lock indicator lights blink. Apparently this is an HP thing that works like the "bad ram" beeps you get on desktops. The number of beeps indicates what the problem is. I call them "bad ram" beeps cause thats normally what they mean but I digress. The number of times that my lights are blinking indicate some sort of "general" MOBO failure. I know this from researching it before and then just recently as it has just happened again.

A little history. The last time this happened I took a few days to frankenstein together another craptop setup to use as my "main" laptop. When I say "main" laptop I mean its the one with the best processor and the most ram and usually my "main" hard drive. I have a laptop hardrive thats lived through the deaths of 5+ machines at this point. Win7 seems to easily just transplant from place to place when it comes to hard drives. Anyway, and I apologize for my longwindedness, the last time this shit happened I threw the 6735b in a closet to maybe harvest its screen at some point. I tend to save anything computer/electronics related broken or not. After a few months using my new setup I decided to go through my parts closet and see if maybe I could build something else... this was mostly just out of pure boredom not need. I grabbed the 6735b and threw an old drive in it and a lil ram and boom "ITS ALIIIIIIIIVE."

That was months ago... 5 or 6 to be precise. Since then its' been my main machine again with the dual screen setup and games and everything thats fun. So it functioned fine after having this problem for a while. I even toted the damn thing around quite a bit on the bus and subway and shit. Recently it hasnt been out of the house and last night it was doing fine... shut down like normal.... but now its back to this fucking blinking caps/num lock shit and I'd love to hear somebody give me some sort of idea that I haven't heard yet about how to fix this problem for good.

McPhallus · December 02, 2012, 08:28:14 PM

Make sure everything is seated properly. I once had a Toshiba lappie that started acting kinda like you described when one of the memory chips got loose somehow. And make sure that hard drive isn't fried, since it's been passed around a lot like a whore.

If that doesn't work, then check the PH and whip out the turmeric spray.

MV/Liberace! · December 02, 2012, 08:37:22 PM

What happens if you connect an external monitor?

analog kid · December 02, 2012, 09:43:57 PM

Did you replace the ram or add to it? How about doing a hardware scan with memtest or whatever it's called these days, and scan the drive for bad sectors?

ziznak · December 03, 2012, 02:10:10 AM

i reseated and changed ram... HDDs as well... same with the DVDRW drive. external monitor does nothing like its not getting past the power up... All of your suggestions make sense and have been done.

It's running now. Why? I have no friggin clue. I left the same HDD in the computer after reseating it and the ram and dvd drive, battery, whatever the fuck. For shits and giggles I did what I read on some forum... its the stupidest thing too. Somebody said they just let thing sit idle for a night and after rebooting the next day it worked. Well, I took it a bit of a step further and let it run idle till the battery died unplugged. Then I turned it on and then left it on charging for a while as I went out, came home, bitched about it to you guys, shot some idiots online, and eventually rebooted it.

And boom its back... maybe it has something to do with the battery not being used? It's always plugged in. Even if I go out the only time the battery has to work is rare and not normally for long... I think its gotta be some sort of power problem somewhere but I really don't get this issue at all. I still want some sort of definitive answer but I fear theres nothing but speculation at this point...

like nike shoes and run down appartments on mars we really can't say for sure that we know wtf is really happening. Still, if anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them.

ziznak · December 03, 2012, 10:41:41 AM

alas it was not to be... this shit is happening again. I'm thinking the mobo is just going somewhere? I can't for the life of me think of any other reason for it. I'm leaving it on even though its in crap-mode to see if eventually it "wakes up" again... looks like I won't be shutting this thing down EVER again. That's assuming of course it comes back to life again.

ziznak · December 04, 2012, 08:37:42 AM

And it came back again after I thought draining the battery and then leaving it run so it was warmed up actually "fixed it." It's amazing how stupid a person can be sometimes... so much so that they will cling onto some of the most remotest possibility to explain some shit. I'm a trained tech and I'm pretty good at my craft YET I think in my desperation my attempts to troubleshoot this have been for naught....

While moving some crap around on my kitchen table/main computer station/ workbench I noticed that the culprit here may possibly have something to do with ... dumb dumb dumb dumb.... the fucking power chord

dumb dumb dumd dumb DUMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

damn thing was only half connected at the middle... im an ass if this is what the problem is....

anybody ever run into something like that?

MV/Liberace! · December 04, 2012, 11:40:33 AM

could be a bad solder point somewhere on the mobo and the heating/expansion and cooling/contraction are affecting it.

ziznak · December 04, 2012, 12:34:00 PM

looks like I'll have another vampire load living in my apartment. I'll just kill the wifi when not in use and set the screen timeout for like 30 mins. Live and let live... open mobo surgery is not an option for me at this point.

MV/Liberace! · December 04, 2012, 03:13:53 PM

Quote from: ziznak on December 04, 2012, 12:34:00 PM
looks like I'll have another vampire load living in my apartment. I'll just kill the wifi when not in use and set the screen timeout for like 30 mins. Live and let live... open mobo surgery is not an option for me at this point.

even if you did open the chassis and pull out the mobo, finding the bad soldering point (if that's indeed the problem) would be a pain.

ziznak · December 04, 2012, 05:59:40 PM

I know and I don't have testers or an iron here. I'll let it run, monitor the core temps (which i already do), and smack the crap out of it's little vent and fan with canned air whenever I get some.

analog kid · December 04, 2012, 06:34:39 PM

It's definitely gotta be a hardware issue with the MOBO. Maybe open it up and clean them ram slots etc., with that air as well. Maybe it's just oxidation or somethin'. Or maybe you got a power surge that fried something.

ziznak · December 04, 2012, 10:52:13 PM

I'm gonna go with your non-soldering iron suggestions and see how it goes...

.....rest assured no matter what happens I'll be bitching about it here!

analog kid · December 05, 2012, 12:03:44 AM

Just bought an el cheapo acer laptop, refurbed for about $280. Entirely unremarkable, but it makes a decent linux computer.

DAE · December 12, 2012, 10:51:44 AM

What's the update on your HP?

Strange... I have a friend who is an HP repair expert. But like most of my "friends", if I asked for a favor they would just grovel with excuses or avoidance-to-help rituals. Which is pathetically ironic because he would know the solution to this or have some great tips. Sucks.

LacyWoodrow · December 12, 2012, 11:28:10 AM

Same thing happened with my HP 110 laptop mini, I had dropped it and the Hard Drive got a litttle loose. Took about an hour to figure out how to open it without breaking it and then the rest was really easy. Weird part is, after I fixed it, I haven't even used it. That was like over a year ago. Come to think of it, I don't even know where it's at... Blimey!

elbee · December 12, 2012, 03:50:44 PM

ziznak,

I have a packard hell, they use the same parts as HP i think.

I have written off the laptop, it has a bad mainboard, would cost more to replace than buy a new.

Get a CLEVO i just got one they are amazing!

ziznak · December 12, 2012, 05:31:39 PM

I've been doing fairly well with leaving this pos on. I just kill the wifi and reboot when I'm done using it and close it up... it basically just sits in pseudo hibernation until I need it again... I have 2 other stations I can use but this is where i do most of my gaming so yeah trying to not have it die yet... not until I've run it ALL THE WAY into the ground

If you get a hold of your friend and get some sort of answer lemme know DAE!! I'm pretty sure this is just a typical short that's closing with a little heat expansion.