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HP Laptop Issues- Motherboard?

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BuckeyeMafia

BuckeyeMafia

A Leaf on the Wind
Hey guys, my girlfriend has an HP laptop and she's having major issues with it. I've looked on Google and it seems to me that it could be a motherboard issue... If so, is there any files I can salvage? How would I go about doing that? Thanks.

Here's her description of what happened:

My computer has been plugged into a wall outlet, without the battery in the computer, for 3-4 hours, and it was asleep, and it was still working, as indicated by the blinking power light. I unplugged it from the wall, and it shut down, since it had no battery. I moved it to my desk, and plugged it into the wall outlet underneath the desk. When I went to turn it back on, nothing happened. Nothing at all. The only light is the light where the plug connects to the computer.

So basically it won't function at all now.

Thanks.
 
If it's the mobo that is fried then you shouldn't have any problems copying data from the HDD.

You'll need a way to connect the drive to another computer. The easiest is usually a USB adapter like this one (note I'm not advocating that specific adapter it's just the first one that popped up on a google search).

You'll need to know whether the drive in question is IDE or SATA...if it's <5 years old it's probably SATA...and make sure the adapter you get is the proper type (some work on multiple interfaces).

Then just remove the drive from the laptop, plug it in (be careful) and copy the data to wherever you want it to go.
 
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It could be as simple as a power supply issue. Do you have the battery or another power brick (aka transformer)? Check to make sure you are actually getting power to the motherboard before you assume it's the motherboard. Since absolutely nothing is happening I would think power issue before motherboard. Even on bad motherboards accessories will often still work. In other words, you would see lights and the fans would spin up.

That doesn't mean it's not the motherboard (it could be an on board power issue), but I would make sure you are actually getting power to the computer first.
 
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BuckeyeMafia;1939809; said:
We tried using another power brick (which works on another computer) and we don't have another battery. Would you assume that it is the motherboard in that case?
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Check the rating of the other power brick. If it's too low vs. your current one, then the computer would act just like you stated. If it is rated similar, then yes, it's most likely the motherboard. What exactly it is could be a bunch of things, from simple fix to completely fried.

The HD stuff is easily salvageable as mentioned above.

If you are the handy type you could open it up and look for obvious issues. You could also look for a motherboard online. They could be cheap, I don't know. If it doesn't have a discrete graphics card, then it's actually not that hard to replace. Someone may have made an instructional video online (I know there are a ton of videos showing how to replace parts on my laptop).

Either that, or use it for target practice, especially if it's a fairly old computer.
 
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She said it's working again... :roll2: But she does have a legitimate power issue, likely related to the battery. Thanks everybody for the help. If it does wind up being a motherboard issue as well I'll have somewhere to start. :biggrin:
 
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OSU_Buckguy;1939812; said:
i had an hp notebook that finally died this winter. replaced the power adapter four (five?) times in under three years. hp's are known for power issues.
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A million times this.

The power connections go bad and as a result you end up with a damaged battery and all sorts of issues. What's worse, Best Buy never actually fixes it even though you send it in three or four times, and they take a month to admit they aren't working on the system, they lost it, until you bother them enough that they actually look for it on the loading dock and actually begin work on it like they said they were doing a month ago and it still isn't fixed, but the recent file history is full of pix you forgot to delete of you and your parents on vacation.*

* Your experience may vary
 
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Deety;1940804; said:
A million times this.

The power connections go bad and as a result you end up with a damaged battery and all sorts of issues. What's worse, Best Buy never actually fixes it even though you send it in three or four times, and they take a month to admit they aren't working on the system, they lost it, until you bother them enough that they actually look for it on the loading dock and actually begin work on it like they said they were doing a month ago and it still isn't fixed, but the recent file history is full of pix you forgot to delete of you and your parents on vacation.*

* Your experience may vary
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Sadly this type of stuff is common across the industry. Power converters/supplies are the easiest thing to make cheap so they work initially, but then wear out. There are tons of Chinese suppliers with poor quality stuff, and not only are they poorly made they start from crappy designs. This allows for a cheap selling point by the OEM, but they always go bad sooner than most of the other components.

It is amazing to see the sheer amount of suppliers in the power supply industry, and many of them make crap. Sadly, power supplies/converters are something where the consumer and the OEM's don't really care about them being high quality, which leads to a lot of buying of crap products since they choose just to go with the cheapest.
 
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