Laptop problems.

[dafoe]

I bought Compaq Presario f557 a little over a year ago. It ran fine for a little while. I played Resident Evil 4 all the way through even though the machine had 512MB of ram- far less than recommended for Vista.

Little by little the machine started getting slower. I couldn't even run games or even crappy emulators. Quite often I had to restart the laptop 2 or 3 times to even run WMP. Then things got really bad. I was having serious memory problems.

A couple of months ago the machine froze on me so I did a hard reset and it would not start up again. All the lights would come on but it wouldn't start. I couldn't even get into the bios. Then, for no apparent reason, it started again. This happened several more times over the next 2 months until a few days ago. I restarted the laptop amd it never came back on.

I replaced the memory with brand new memory and it made no difference. I can hear the HD spin up when I hit the power switch. But then it just shuts down as if somebody switched it off. It will repeat this cycle forever if not shut down or unplugged- the battery has been dead for about 6 months.

I figure if it was the hard drive I would still be able to get into the bios. So I was going to try a new power supply next. I was just wondering what you guys think the likelihood is that the power supply is the problem here. I would hate to spend money on a new plug if I don't need to. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[gadgetguy]

Have you tried powering on AC while the battery is removed?

[AlanHK]

Does it have a CD drive?
If so, you can try booting from a diagnostic CD, eg from http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
That will eliminate any software or hard disk problems.

You may have to enable boot from CD in the BIOS, or press a combination of keys on booting.

[dafoe]

Thanks for the replies. I have tried to boot with and without the battery. I have even tried just the battery- it should have enough of a charge to boot and does seem to try for a little while if I charge it.

As for the boot CD. I dont know how well that will work as I can't seem to get into the bios. I don't have time to try it right now. But I will give it a shot later and let you know how it worked out.

Thanks guys.

[dafoe]

I tried reseating the memory several times with no luck. I even tried a brand new stick.

This morning I had it plugged in for several hours and it was going through it's endless attempt to boot cycle. While it was powered on I pulled the memory out and turned it off. I restarted it without the memory stick in it and it did the morse code beeping BS. I shut it off, put the memory in and turned it back on. And it actually booted. I logged into windows and it started installing drivers without promting me. Everything seems fine for now. I did shut it off. So I'll see if it actually turns on again later.

I don't get it. If anybody has any ideas I am definitely curious.

[TBoneit]

A. While it was less than 1 year old you should have contacted Compaq(HP) for warranty. It could just be a corrupted Windows. The running slower and slower points to a Malware infestation.

OTOH it could be the Motherboard going bad, the fact that you couldn't even get into the BIOS says hardware problem.

[redwudz]

While it is still running, I would set the first boot device to CD ROM in BIOS. That won't slow down the regular boot from the hard drive that much, and may let you try a diagnostic disc when it quits on you again. This one is popular: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Or find a Linux distro live disc and try to boot from that. Ruling out the installed programs and the OS should tell you if it's a software problem.

If the battery is dead and the laptop loses power though a bad power connector, that can cause major hard drive corruption. After a few cycles of this, you will likely not have a working computer. Some laptops have a problem there with poor quality connectors and they can loosen and cause shutdowns.

But it does sound like a hardware problem, along with a few other problems. Some of that could point to a overheating CPU and thermal shutdown, but that won't cure itself. Also, when you got that laptop, you should have been able to make some restore discs from the restore partition on it. If not, you should be able to order them from Compaq. The downside of the restore discs are that they put all the crippleware crap back on your system and you have to remove it again.

Hope that helps a bit. I have a Compaq 750US, but no problems with it.

[OmniService]

HP had a major issue with a large number of notebooks where an instruction in the BIOS didn't turn on the fan soon enough to avoid overheating and burn out of motherboard components. An updated BIOS changed the instruction so that the fan is always on but increases speed as temperature increases. Your laptop is covered under the HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement for an additional year beyond the 1 year warranty for issues related to this problem. Laptops covered under this program will exhibit the following behaviors:
The notebook does not detect wireless networks and the wireless adapter is not detected in the Device Manager.
There is no video on the computer LCD panel or external monitor.
The notebook turns on, power LEDs light up, but nothing is seen on the display.

Contact HP Support for repair.

[Nelson37]

Sounds like a strong possibility.

Do you happen to know if this issue also affects any Toshiba Satellite laptops?