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My laptop is trying to kill itself!

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jlb1705

jlb1705

hipster doofus
Bookie
Earlier tonight, I was doing my normal internet stuff - IMing, checking email, browsing BP... when my laptop froze up. I tried Ctrl+Alt+Del to try to close any non-responding programs or reboot, but got no response from that. I tried shutting down through the power key. I tried to send it into Hibernate by closing the screen. None of that worked. As a last resort, I removed all power from it to shut it off (removed the battery and AC adapter).

After hitting the power key to try to start it back up, I have gone through all kinds of shit. First of all, everything it does has been slow as you could imagine. It'll go through the HP startup screen, and then to the Windows XP startup screen. After about ten minutes on that screen, it'll go to a black screen, as if it's proceeding as normal. Then it will flash a blue screen with about five lines of stuff I can't read - because it only flashes on there for less than a second before rebooting itself and going through it all over again. On some occasions, it has given me the option to start up in Safe Mode, or under Last Known Working Configuration. None of those has gotten me past that Windows XP screen. Also on occasion, it has gone into CHKDSK. When it does this, it comes up with all kinds of unreadable segments, eventually goes through all its stages (after about 20-30 minutes), reboots, and goes right back to getting stuck on that Windows XP screen and rebooting.

I've tried everything I can think of. I'm praying there's a way around this, since I have a lot of important stuff on there, and haven't been wise enough to back anything up for a good six months or so.

Please help if you are able and willing.
 
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Ouch.

If safemode isn't getting you anywhere, you're in trouble.

On the brightside, you may have a new paperweight.

If its a Dell, you can always call their award winning technical service group. :biggrin:
 
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Yeah, no kidding. I've had the thing for 13-14 months now. Of course, I didn't buy the extended warranty. That's because the effing warranty was half the price of the computer. Anyway, hopefully I can get this thing working. I'm not even gonna try to call HP. The tech support they offer for these things is a joke.
 
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Are you sure that's the problem? Because if I just remove all power to shut it off, obviously, it'll shut off. If I then restore power, I can press the power button to turn it back on. The problem seems to be more along the lines that Windows XP is failing to load/start properly, and when it does that, it's just automatically restarting itself.
 
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Well being that you mentioned you had to remove power and battery to even get it to shut off, that wouldnt be a windows issue, that is hardware related. I cant say for sure if it's exactly what I mentioned in my earlier post, but definitely sounds like a hardware problem to me.

If it was a windows issue, you'd still be able to turn it off using the power button.
 
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Well, the reason I said I wasn't sure about that is attributed to the eMachines desktop (which I'm using right now) that you assisted me in reformatting about a year ago (if you remember). This computer wouldn't shut down via the power button for the longest time, but after I reformatted, it does.

Besides, if it is a bad power supply, I don't think that's the only problem. I can't see how a power supply would cause all the other stuff I mentioned, unless it's all caused by the thing not being shut down properly.
 
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Besides, if it is a bad power supply, I don't think that's the only problem. I can't see how a power supply would cause all the other stuff I mentioned, unless it's all caused by the thing not being shut down properly.
Click to expand...

Actually a failing power supply can cause a multitude of problems. But I do now wonder something. When it does lock up and such, did you try actually holding in the power button for about 6 seconds? Because just pressing it will not cause it to turn off.

It very well could just be that windows is failing and you need to format it. Also could be the hard drive failing. Very hard to say without actually looking at it of course.
 
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My current status:

I reinstalled (overwrote) Windows XP, and it seems to have worked. Everything started up OK, and I'm now in the process of backing up all of my important stuff to my flash drive and my desktop computer. After that, I will completely reformat the laptop.

I haven't tested out the power button yet to see if that is indeed a problem. I want to get everything backed up again before I start messing with anything else.
 
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jlb1705 said:
After hitting the power key to try to start it back up, I have gone through all kinds of shit. First of all, everything it does has been slow as you could imagine. It'll go through the HP startup screen, and then to the Windows XP startup screen. After about ten minutes on that screen, it'll go to a black screen, as if it's proceeding as normal. Then it will flash a blue screen with about five lines of stuff I can't read - because it only flashes on there for less than a second before rebooting itself and going through it all over again. On some occasions, it has given me the option to start up in Safe Mode, or under Last Known Working Configuration. None of those has gotten me past that Windows XP screen. Also on occasion, it has gone into CHKDSK. When it does this, it comes up with all kinds of unreadable segments, eventually goes through all its stages (after about 20-30 minutes), reboots, and goes right back to getting stuck on that Windows XP screen and rebooting.
Click to expand...

The last time I ran into a similar situation was on a desktop a few weeks ago. Turned out to be a bad motherboard from what I could tell. I think the Intel 82801 I/O chip was bad. Basically it would POST, but as soon as Windows attempted to load, I would either get a restart or a BSOD. Dell sent out a replacement motherboard and I haven't had any problems since.
 
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Well, reinstalling Windows XP still seems to be working.

Because I'm a dumbass, instead of using my old desktop computer as BACKUP storage space, I used it as EXTRA storage space. My laptop has 60 GB of space, and the desktop 40 GB. now I'm trying to find a way to fit all the important stuff into 40 GB of space before I reformat the laptop.

I wish I had a DVD burner or external HDD right now, but I won't be able to afford one for a couple weeks. Needless to say, once I can afford one, I'm getting it. I don't want to have to worry about this shit again. Losing everything on that laptop would have been a disaster.

Oh, by the way, I have tried the power button on the laptop, and it works just fine after the Windows reinstallation
 
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I'm finally back on my laptop. I still don't have all of my files and software restored to it, but it's a work in progress.

It's been pain in the ass, but kinda a blessing in disguise. A lot of software that needed updating before is now installed under the new versions, and it scared me straight into backing up my important stuff. Needless to say, I'll be buying an external HDD and probably an external DVD+/-RW as soon as I can.

Thanks for all the input guys.
 
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