laptop boot up problems

[Fred Elliot]

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.

Ill try it mate

[Power to people]

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.

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

[Simon Pieman]

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).

[Fred Elliot]

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

[Simon Pieman]

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

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.

[Fred Elliot]

thaat would be ace if you could mate

[Simon Pieman]

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.

[axs]

usually Fn and F7 or F8.

[Fred Elliot]

I have tried the external monitor but no luck

Fuck only knows what buttons Jenna has pressed

 :?

[reeves4england]

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  

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

[Power to people]

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   )

Or you just bought her a new one ?

[flammableBen]

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

[Simon Pieman]

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.

[fatbury]

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

[Fred Elliot]

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 !