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Basically it wont,

Fan runs and it makes all the sounds as if it is booting up but the screen remains blank.

Was working OK yesterday, I have tried a hard reset and removing battery and power lead etc to no avail.

Any ideas you geeky techi guru's ?

Love

Fred

remove the power lead and battery, and hold down the power button for a minute.

Reconnect it all and hey presto!

Try plugging it into an external monitor to see if you are getting display or not through, could possibly be the screen that is at fault it is a common problem with laptop's...and they are a pain in the arse to change without breaking the plastics of the casing

Do what jayothingymabob said. Sounds like it's powering up but not POSTing.

 :shake:  :|

Hard lines. Try it through an external monitor then...?

The simple solution is throw it in the bn and have a beer.

nothing mate

sounds fucked.a pc i owned went like that.was under guarantee and got replaced.
how old is it freddie?

3 yrs mate

its the daughters

Probably not a good time to mention my Dell laptop is still working fine. Only £329 if you buy direct Fred.

(I know this is wearing a bit thin now)

:mrgreen:

What laptop is it?

Could be hard drive failure. Have you got the XP cd? If so whack it in and there should be some facility to 'repair' the installation.

Packard Easynote

Ill try it mate

If you are getting no display and nothing through external vga either then I suspect it may be a either a motherboard problem or the vga card has gone, it is a risk of you try and get repaired as they are not realy like pc's where you can swap bit's to fault find, these day's they are not really cost effective to get repaired either though.
get Jenna a cheap pc, see a good spec one on ukhotdeals today at about £230 which was a bargain

I would try and access the BIOS (the motherboard's menu - has your general hardware settings etc.)

If you press and hold del or F1 or F10 (try each one) after switching on hopefully it will load the BIOS menu. If you still have no joy then I would try as Sam suggested. If still no joy then if you can find the exact model number (should eb on a label underneath) you can always try and re-flash the BIOS - this is done by creating a bootable cd and is easy to do - you can get an .exe file from the packard website which will create it for you. Then just switch the computer on and it will load the new BIOS.

It sounds like the laptop is having trouble 'waking up' from sleep mode or something. I don't think the graphics are necessarily fucked as if this was the case it would probably refuse to turn on at all.

Is the screen slightly lit when powered on (but still blank).

Completely black Si

tried what you suggested, no luck with the F keys, it wont even load through the CD Rom

Ill try the bootable CD thingy

Hmmm, might be pretty fudged then from the sound of it. Serves you right for porn surfing on your daughters machine  :wink:

If not mate I could always take a gander at it for you, at least to hook it up to an external monitor or something and try and find the problem.

thaat would be ace if you could mate

I've had a quick google and some people have found that plugging it in to an external monitor has worked.

Just to double check - you haven't accidentally pressed the function button to output the video to an external source? Usually you have to do this by holding a function key and then another.

Sorry if I'm asking too obvious questions - it's usually the simplest things you see.

usually Fn and F7 or F8.

I have tried the external monitor but no luck

Fuck only knows what buttons Jenna has pressed

 :?

We all know it's your fault buddy  :wink:

Seriously though, hope you get it sorted. Lot of money for something that breaks so easily!

Did you get it sorted in the end (I liked it where everyone was telling you to plug into external screen even though you'd tried it  :D )

Or you just bought her a new one ?

I had a similar problem with my Mum's laptop today. I just kept mashing at the on button until it worked. Job done.

Fred I will take a look at it just to make sure before you end up laying a few hundred notes on a new one.

I like the way I almost sent some of my computer stuff back once, but my persistance paid off and I identified what the problem was and sorted it out.

If it doesn't work I'll let PtP know so he can sell you a new one.

Sounds to me like a definate hard drive failure - happened to a 4 year old one of mine once .. tried everything but nothing worked -- cheaper to get a new one than new hard drive

THANKS PIEMAN !!!!!

Took out the memory card plugged into the montherboard and waited 15mins before reseating it, reassembled lappy and now everything is working, and a damn sight faster too.

Mucho Guinness owed to you mate

Many many thanks !

No worries dude. Sounded like something could have potentially unseated itself  :)

Jenna will be made up, she has been in tears thinking it was something she had done.

Only bought it for her about a month ago

right if yours is fixed my bro has a problem with his!

he changed his CPU recently and now it crashes constantly and gets the message IRQL is not less or equal.

What CPU did he upgrade to, do you know? Also if possible, what's his motherboard?

up to AMD XP3200, Asus A7N8X-X

and he also gets a message saying ATI control panel won't initialize because ATI driver is missing or fucked. he has tried reloading driver from disk, and trying an updated driver off tinternet.

Hmm, I think the CPU change my be coincidental, I think it's a driver problem.

Update the chipset (motherboard) drivers with newer ones if you can and see if that works.

It should tell you what specifically (e.g. somerandomname.sys) is giving the issue when it crashes

weirdly, we just tried dropping his RAM speed and it has allowed him to load the driver so he has graphics back. very strange. is it a shit mobo or something?

What's the default speed of the RAM? I suppose it could be something to do with the new cpu speed throwing it out of whack, but I'm not too hot on AMD processor knowledge.

It sounds like some sort of IRQ thingy clash. Like you might get from fucking up setting up your sound card for old Dos games. So as SiPie says drivers a go go.

So carry on SiPie I'm well out of date on all this modern mcshizzle.

A quick google makes me more certain me and Ben are on the right track with the driver thing.

Note the name of the driver next time and then uninstall it and then install a newer version. Hopefully it should fix it and the RAM should also be able to be clocked correctly and not underclocked.

newest drivers are on there for everything, when the RAM is at 166 it works, but at its normal 400 nothing does. file that is stated is win32k.sys

Unless the RAM is PC3200 the it won't work at the 400mhz speed (I think my maths is right)

it is PC3200.

Is there an fsb to memory ratio setting? Try setting it at 1:1 or 'synced' if there is

I think jjedmunds would know about this more than me.

is that in bios?

front side bus right?

Yes I'm talking BIOS.

My hunch is the previous cpu was running slower, so the bus speed was lower. However, the memory wanted to run at it's full 400 so the ratio between memory and bus might be different to 1:1

what menu is that in?
we can't find the right field to change.

I'll download the user manual to see what options there are and if I'm talkign rubbish.

I'm used to Intel baby

and yet you advised me to get AMD  :D

(which works perfectly and fucking quick!)

Change memory frequency in the advanced settings to sync

there's 2 options, Auto or SPD?

Select SPD and see if it gives you more options.

What you want is the cpu frequency to match the memory frequency. They should both be 200mhz I think

no more options but changes the CAS from 2.5 to 3T whatever the fuck that may be.

i need to go to bed, i'll let him fuck about with it, it didn't like SPD at all.

cheers for the help though Si.

That's ok. If it doesn't happen run it at speeds it will work and I could always take a gander.

If the CPU frequency isn't matching the memory then a setting isn't right as far as I can tell