HP Pavilion dv9500 not booting

[Hodsocks]

I have been given an HP laptop to look at, originally the sound was not working so updated drivers and rebooted laptop, on reboot it would not boot up.
I have tried booting up from recovery partition (F11) but it just black screens, I have tried booting up from Vista disc but it just comes up with the first screen with copying files along the bottom and then it black screens. Sometimes it willl restart, I will press a key to boot from cd, it goes through copying files with the white progress bar along the bottom and the stops with a blank screen or restarts.
I have tried the same with a Win 7 disc which does the same but stops on the next screen with "starting windows" displayed.
I have run memory checks and disc checks and both were fine.
This has me puzzled so I am hoping you guys have a clue whats going on here.

 

[raybay]

Defective hard drive is my guess.
Have you tried removing and reinstalling the partition? If you cannot do that, you should try another hard drive as a test.

 

[Hodsocks]

I thought the same. but have removed the drive, connected it to another pc and removed all partitions and repartitioned and formatted the drive but still the same problem. I ran both the hard drive and memory tests within the HP BIOS and both passed OK. Having said that I have tried to run othe rmemory tests and it freezes or reboots during tests, changed memory and the same thing happens. Tried to run the hitachi disc diagnostics and it freezes when checking mechanics.

 

[Sharam]

It is a very bad feeling when you get a system to fix and it decides to die while in your shop, sometimes is just a weak power supply and a different power siurce (in my case) or just the luck of the draw but this is a notebook and one with problems that have had users saying it has a "design" flaw!

Knowing that there is an issue with the power jack with this model (one of the flaws" ) can you fully charge the battery while it is OFF (best to power it ON and then force it OFF by holding the power switch for more than 4 seconds) after the battery is charged, attempt to run the setup with no adapter and just the battery. Trying to ensure the power jack is still OK.

Some or MANY 9500s with defective GS8600 reported working OK for some time after the battery was removed for a few minutes, if you are going to test this, locate and remove the CMOS battery for a few minutes as well!

If there is a BIOS update, apply it.

In order to determine hardware or software for certain, can you download UBUNTU's ISO, burn it and see if it loads? You might already have a "bootable" CD such as Hiren with mini XP and Linux to try!

If it came down to the hardware which I suspect, I would then highly recommend to disassemble the 9500, inspect and clean the components one by one.

Same as the DV6000, 9000 and a few more (Nvidia based) motherboards at around the time Nvidia had the issue I'm not going to get in to ... the 9500 series had a lot of issues with the GS8600. There is a fix for the re-movable type (don't know which DV9500 you have)

The point is that the issues affecting these series, could cuase other problems and failures and you can not know for sure till you open the guts and inspect the components, meanwhile you can search for DV9500, bookmark and /or print a few pages to show the owner it is not your fualt.

Hope it is just a bad drive in your case but sounds like them electrons speeding through thoes "highways" in different qudrants, bounce around and/ or get assimilated somehow !

 

[raybay]

It is a very bad feeling when you get a system to fix and it decides to die while in your shop, sometimes is just a weak power supply and a different power siurce (in my case) or just the luck of the draw but this is a notebook and one with problems that have had users saying it has a "design" flaw!

Knowing that there is an issue with the power jack with this model (one of the flaws" ) can you fully charge the battery while it is OFF (best to power it ON and then force it OFF by holding the power switch for more than 4 seconds) after the battery is charged, attempt to run the setup with no adapter and just the battery. Trying to ensure the power jack is still OK.

Some or MANY 9500s with defective GS8600 reported working OK for some time after the battery was removed for a few minutes, if you are going to test this, locate and remove the CMOS battery for a few minutes as well!

If there is a BIOS update, apply it.

In order to determine hardware or software for certain, can you download UBUNTU's ISO, burn it and see if it loads? You might already have a "bootable" CD such as Hiren with mini XP and Linux to try!

If it came down to the hardware which I suspect, I would then highly recommend to disassemble the 9500, inspect and clean the components one by one.

Same as the DV6000, 9000 and a few more (Nvidia based) motherboards at around the time Nvidia had the issue I'm not going to get in to ... the 9500 series had a lot of issues with the GS8600. There is a fix for the re-movable type (don't know which DV9500 you have)

The point is that the issues affecting these series, could cuase other problems and failures and you can not know for sure till you open the guts and inspect the components, meanwhile you can search for DV9500, bookmark and /or print a few pages to show the owner it is not your fualt.

Hope it is just a bad drive in your case but sounds like them electrons speeding through thoes "highways" in different qudrants, bounce around and/ or get assimilated somehow !

 

[raybay]

"... sounds like them electrons speeding through thoes "highways" in different qudrants, bounce around and/ or get assimilated somehow..."


Really helpful to know.

But in the meantime, the hard drive deserves to be tested.

 

[Sharam]

Not the best way to describe the PCB, circuits and the moving Data, I know, meant to read as if a circuit was bad due to an overheating component or shorts caused by a defective power jack every time the adapter was plugged in and out or the bad solder joints due to using cold solder.

Didn't mean anything other than a smile, I know I failed "how to achieve a good sense of humour 101! But since Hodsocks sounded like he has been doing some repairs and trouble shooting, I thought he would get my point.

Don’t know if updating the Audio drivers worked since after re-boot, the problems started showing.

Location of the Audio Chip and jacks, the circuits to the Chipset, same with the hard drive connector (power and data) passing an overheating component or even voltage fluctuations could cause a lot of problems (data corruption, component failure) that simple replacement might fix temporarily later forcing a motherboard replacement never leading to the main cause of all these “undocumented” findings.

 

[raybay]

Usually, with that model, it is the Samsung hard drive gone south.
If not, it is the non-repairable motherboard. HP had a product alert out on it, and extended the warranty for six months.