HP it broke

March 28, 2010 8:42 AM

My HP laptop dv6500 abruptly shut down last night and now it won't turn on. Anything I can do? Or where can I get it fixed (I hope?) in downtown Toronto?

When I press the power button a blue light blinks for a quarter of a second and then nothing happens. It's a couple of years old and not under any warranty. I've tried taking out the battery and then restarting. It's shut off before when it overheats and this seemed slightly similar... but the fan wasn't going crazy like usual (maybe the problem).

posted by scribbler to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Best answer: Make sure you've unplugged everything but the power adapter and try again.

Have you tried all possible power configurations (Cord+Battery, Cord only, Battery only)? Is the battery dead or fully charged? Do you have access to a different power cord - it's possible that the computer simply isn't getting enough power to overcome the initial 'surge' of power that it takes to power it up.

This requires a screwdriver and maybe a bit of courage, but you could also try removing and firmly-but-gently re-inserting the RAM. I've known computers not to boot if the memory modules were not properly inserted or had come loose. There will probably be two sticks - If you're lucky they're behind a door on the bottom of the machine. If you're unlucky, one or both is underneath the keyboard - slightly more complicated, but still something you can probably do. Good videos at http://www.crucial.com/support/video/
posted by itheearl at 9:24 AM on March 28, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks that was a good mental kick... it was doing absolutely nothing with the cord-only variation and moving to a different power outlet seems to have resulted in success (although I got a "memory access violation" error).
posted by scribbler at 9:34 AM on March 28, 2010