laptops

[SIRCOOKS]

anyone in here really good at laptop trouble shooting, im pretty good at desktop ts but this is a new dimension, my girlfriends compaq presario 1200 died on her a lil while back, and now im looking at it it has it ligghts, their on,indicating power, but whn i press on, i hear nothing as if the hard drive isn't doing anything, and the monitor doesn't flicker or anything, nothing smells burnt..what couldi do..hollaback

[Capmaster]

Some laptops have a tiny reset hole usually in the back by the connectors where you can push in a paper clip and reset the BIOS to default settings. See if you can do that.

[SIRCOOKS]

cool, ill try that

[Dr. DOS]

You should be able to download a PDF troubleshooting guide from Compaq... once the keyboard is off you will recognize everything. One word of caution... the cables they use in these machines (ribbon) to connect keyboard to MB and other components are very flimsy and break easy. One good reason to get are repair pdf doc to assist in disassembly. I was able to do some board level replacements on my old dell laptop

Good Luck

[SIRCOOKS]

that little hole at the abck to reset the bios suggestion didn't work, simply because i cant find the hole (maybe i should put some hair around it), but honestly, i found no hole to stick anything in to reset.

Also where can i start to donwload such a pdf file to troubleshoot

[Capmaster]

that little hole at the abck to reset the bios suggestion didn't work, simply because i cant find the hole (maybe i should put some hair around it), but honestly, i found no hole to stick anything in to reset.

Also where can i start to donwload such a pdf file to troubleshoot

A little fuzz might help I guess you have one that doesn't have the hole. It's really not a good thing to have, security-wise, so maybe that's why not all have it. I had Dell, Sager and Gateway laptops that all had the hole, but my current Dell doesn't. Oh well, it was worth a look anyways. :P

[SIRCOOKS]

any ideas on where to find such a pdf file? send a url to me plz

[julio]

take out battery then switch on(using mains adaptor) if it boots up ok turn off then reinstall battery

[SIRCOOKS]

k, what else can u think bout, and why would the battery m aybe be a problem?,..holla back

[julio]

i had a problem with mine wouldnt boot at all phoned tech support thats what they told me to do i was supprised it worked for me they said it was some kind of static and its a frequent problem

[SIRCOOKS]

so after you did that, didu have to buy a new battery.or what...what else did u do after that..holla back

[SIRCOOKS]

ill send you a pic of my laptop later on

[julio]

no the battery works fine it was only a couple of months old at the time,just something to try before you rip it apart

[SIRCOOKS]

cool...will do

[Dr. DOS]

any ideas on where to find such a pdf file? send a url to me plz

Get model number off bottom of machine and go up to compaq web site. They should have downloadable support documents available for your machine

[SIRCOOKS]

k...cool

[Capmaster]

k...cool

I hope you get it sorted SIRCOOKS. My wife's HP laptop heatsink fan died and the thing overheated. I downloaded a service manual for the thing (an absolute necessity for laptops since it tells you the order to remove every assembly and every screw), ordered the new heatsink/fan, replaced it and buttoned it up. I never would have attempted it without the manual.

So in case you do need to take it apart, make sure you search the web using the model number and "service manual" or similar for the search term. Get the manual before you ever loosen a screw. You'll be glad you did

[SIRCOOKS]

will do, anything else i should use, special equipment, ???????

[offline]

A pack of jeweler's screwdrivers (also a bit set if required) and a camera to record each step
in case you get lost in all the parts.

[snafu099]

Have you tried a boot disc
If it does not have a floppy drive, try a bootable cd

If the hdd is accessable without disasemble, you could remove it and connect to desktop sys as slave, using adaptor, thes test it out

[SIRCOOKS]

ill have to try this hd thing, thats what i think is the main problem