Hi. I have an HP Pavillion laptop (can get the number for you when I get home). I was on the internet one day and my computer froze up, so I turned it off. When I tried to turn it back on, the screen was plain black. It's been doing this for the past few weeks. The power light stays on. But the disk drive light lights up for about 2 seconds when I turn the laptop on, and then it blinks off. You can also hear the noise the disk drive makes for a few seconds, and then that turns off as well. There are no fans running or anything, my screen is just black, and the computer is silent. Any idea what's going on? Is my laptop dead?

This may sound a bit silly but we had a problem with a Desktop once with identical symptoms. It turned out to be the power switch. This can happen coz a power switch doesn't provide constant power, more a sort of start impulse. I replaced the switch and - hey presto - no further problems.

This may not be true of a notebook however and I'm a bit loath to strip my Tosh to find out!

You can check this by exposing the Motherboard switch connections and disconnecting the plugs and simply jumping the exposed terminals momentarily.

Good luck!

griggrog

If you have a USB cable plugged into it with for instance your iPod... it sometimes won't turn on either, I've heard this problem occurs even if there's a printer connected. Try removing any excess USB cables and rebooting.

Thanks
K

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic55208.html

Moderator Edit:

URL is pointing to: Laptop won't power on? guide

I have an HP Pavillion also. May sound strange, but unplug your machine and remove the battery, wait 30 secs. and then reinstall it, plug power in and power on. May work, has worked for me when my machine has acted a bit weird.

I'd try a CHKDSK /R from the Windows Recovery Console. It sounds like a file system corruption problem. Boot from the Windows installation CD, select Recovery Console. Once at the DOS prompt, enter CHKDSK /R and let it run. Repost with the results.

Best,
-- Andy

ladyexlibris, tell the exact model number. if this laptop has nvidia chipset, i suspect, that there's nothing you can do with laptop. take it to service centre.

No need to pay at any service centre just yet

You can chat with HP for free by following this link
Or you can have a look at the No Post Tutorial

I note this thread is now 2 weeks old though!

LadyExLibris have you had any progress on your original issue?

i have the exact same problem with my hp and i contacted hp on their online help chat. after running a couple of tests the tech told me to send it in for repairs cause its a hardware problem.