Laptop Problem - won't boot up.

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:01 am

Hi folks, can anyone point me in the right direction regarding my laptop issue??? I'll try summarise concisely below.

Essentially, my laptop sporadically fails to boot up.
It even fails to get beyond the POST screen. However, occasionally it does work as it should.

On pressing the power button to initiate boot up, the LEDs signifying hard drive, system, and caps lock etc - they all flash as soon as I hit the power button. As soon as these flash, the machine makes it's usual noises and then tries to access the cd rom looking for boot information. If the laptop is working you hear it try to access the CD and as soon as it works out there isnt a cd in the drive, it flashes immediately the POST screen, and then subsequently boots up ok. When it isn't working however, it seems to access the CD rom drive, and then grinds to a halt.

The power to the laptop stays on rather than the machine switching itself off. I appears to "hang" as soon as it has accessed the CD Rom.

Any ideas what could be causing the problem?

System Spec - Pentium 4 3 ghz. 800 mhz FSB. 512 meg ram.
Dual Boot (Audio and General Partitions)

The interesting thing about the problem is the fact that it doesn't always occur. I can be there for an hour tryining to start the thing, and then all of a sudden for no apparent reason it will boot up fine. This will be after fruitlessly disconnecting all peripherals, and reconnecting in all the possible permutations - ie disconnecting all cables incl power to boot from battery, then add power cable, and so forth.

Any ideas???

Lowride

neomodo · Post by **neomodo** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:33 am

well - off the top of my head - I'd say you have a bit of a problem....

wouldn't you say?

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:33 am

As for why: could be related to temperature...

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:40 am

Related to temperature??? Why? It doesn't boot up even when it has been sitting switched of for hours. When it is pulled straight out from it's case.

Strangely though, If I manage to get it to go, and decide to restart it to use the other boot partition, it doesn't fail to boot correctly, even after it has been switched on for hours...

Lowride

neomodo · Post by **neomodo** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:41 am

he he -just kidding..

It sounds to me like you have either a problem with your boot loader - you have a dual boot system - are both os's on the same drive partition? Hope not...

Other thing to check before you throw in the towel are the basic things - if your boot loader is corrupted or on its way to being unusable you might be able to aver disaster by defragmenting - but not with the built in defrag but rather go download a demo of diskkeeper and make sure you get it to defragment the MFT. The defrag will also help consolidatre data. Also run chkdsk -

If it isn't a corruption problem - then you may be facing impending doom with your hard disk make sure you backe everything up.

Also check the boot order in your system bios and put the HD first -
Take out the CD drive when you boot - I have a feeling it will behave differently with the drive removed.

and of course mame sure you haven't been infected with some virus - you can go to housecall.antivirus.com for an online virus, security and spyware check - this is trend micro's web service.

if the machine beeps a few times when it is turning on count how many long and short beeps... that will let you know what kind of problem it is.

good luck -

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:44 am

The machine always beeps once when it boots up , and this beep always occurs simultaneously with the flash of the POST screen.

Could it be a virus issue, even though it doesn't get passed the POST screen?? Why should it sometimes work perfectly, completley glitch free, and others not at all??? Seems completley bizarre. Surely if it's broke, it's broke?

Lowride

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:48 am

Lowride wrote:Related to temperature??? Why? It doesn't boot up even when it has been sitting switched of for hours. When it is pulled straight out from it's case.

So? I didn't say heat was the problem.

Strangely though, If I manage to get it to go, and decide to restart it to use the other boot partition, it doesn't fail to boot correctly, even after it has been switched on for hours...

My point exactly.

First things first: you've made a backup right?

Edit - and a virus at that point is *highly* unlikely, if not impossible.

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:50 am

I have a fairly recent back up, but as soon as I get it to go again I'll be making another.
Lowride

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:56 am

Good.

Anyways, if it fails when the unit is cold some sort of internal connection problem is most likely (flat cable / PCB / whatever).

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:03 am

Ah, so it shouldn't a big problem to fix. Is it necessary to send back to base for repair???

Any idea what would be likely to have casued this dodgy connection? The reason I ask is that 6 months ago it had a serious problem in which the motherboard needed replaced. I'm just wondering if both of these issues could be connected...

Lowride

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:21 am

Motherboard = PCB. So it might be related.

It could be caused by all sorts of things, *but* if it fails consistantly when it's cold, they can reproduce the problem and fix it. I'd send it back in that case as the problem can get worse over time...

This is one of the reasons why they do burn-in tests (hot and cold) btw.

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:28 am

Tuur, it sounds like you may have hit the nail on the head. It has progressively got worse over time. Initially it would only happen sporadically. Now I;m almost guaranteed that it won't work.

My concern is this though. Would you say that this is a major fault?
In the past year since I have had the machine I have had these 2 problems. Firstly, the motherboard goes caput after about 6 months. Secondly this problem rears it's head shortly after I get the laptop back from the first repair. I have ahd the laptop for just over a year now, so any warranty I have will be obsolete within the next 10 months. I'm very concerned that another problem may develop after this time which needs drastic attention, and/or require purchasing new components.

Would you say I am in a position to demand a replacement machine, or am I over reacting? The machine was bought for doing prodcution work, and playing live. As it is, it has bareley been fit for purpose - ie mega unreliable at booting up. How can I possibly fulfil live events with such a machine...

Lowride

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:09 pm

Lowride wrote:My concern is this though. Would you say that this is a major fault? In the past year since I have had the machine I have had these 2 problems. Firstly, the motherboard goes caput after about 6 months. Secondly this problem rears it's head shortly after I get the laptop back from the first repair.

As long as you don't do some 'extreme laptopping' I'd say it is a major fault. Maybe even a production problem (you might try to google for that, maybe there are other reports).

Would you say I am in a position to demand a replacement machine, or am I over reacting? The machine was bought for doing prodcution work, and playing live. As it is, it has bareley been fit for purpose - ie mega unreliable at booting up. How can I possibly fulfil live events with such a machine...

You can always try (both the manufacturer and your dealer)...

I wouldn't say you're over reacting though. FWIW.

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:19 pm

Yeah, well I have barley had the thing out of the house, hence my concern. Extreme laptopping hasn't been on the agenda...

Lowride

ishimaru · Post by **ishimaru** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:19 pm

This sounds like a mother board issue. You should send it back for repairs.