Calling all computer geeks, help/advice needed

[chibae]

Background..beast in question is a three year old HP Compaq Presario

Recent history...CD/DVD burner died, cursor would stop working, needed to be clicked off and on again, screen would not come on when beast was awoken requiring turning off and restarting.

Last Friday, beast rebooted for an update, black screen of death appeared. As I needed to leave for the weekend beast was left turned off.

Last night, pulled battery, unplugged cord and held start button down for 60 seconds, restarted beast with cable but not battery. Made sure all data backed up to external drive, turned off, put back in battery, started again no issues. Noticed heat was building up so I turned beast off for the night.

This evening, beast would not turn on. repeated battery pull, etc. Still took 13 tries to get it to turn on.

Any idea on how long till beast needs to be put down, or is there a vet who can help it?

 

[adnedarn]

So... it's a laptop? Have you used canned air to try and clean it out? Sounds similar to my wife's computer (same but hers is a bit older) I've taken it completely apart a few times in order to get in there and really clean out all the dust around the processor (it packed in really really good...). Something like this...




Oh, she has a Sony Viao now, I've done it to that too though. lol

 

[chibae]

Holy Laptop Boss Man. How did you even get that top off? I can't find the screws on mine except for the HDD and RAM areas.

 

[Mikey3288]

Hrrm so when you say you try it turn it on, what exactly happens? Do you hear the fans start running and audible beeps from the motherboard? If so, the beep codes tell you what's wrong depending on the type and version of your BIOS.

 

[chibae]

Hrrm so when you say you try it turn it on, what exactly happens? Do you hear the fans start running and audible beeps from the motherboard? If so, the beep codes tell you what's wrong depending on the type and version of your BIOS.

I know, but silly me forgot to count the beeps/blinks and don't want to shut it down again right now to do so
Fan runs, caps lock blinks, all shuts down. Last week fan ran, no blinks and no shut down, just no visual display

 

[amphirion]

so, your computer is still running and operating but no display on screen (like it's not even on)?

 

[adnedarn]

I'm good at fixing a lot of things, computers included. I've torn apart probably 5 laptops. The above are good questions....

 

[fullcollapse]

Do you have an external display? There is probably a VGA port on the back of the laptop you could hook it up to. Next time you restart that would narrow it down to your LCD on the laptop or your video card. I would think an intermittent issue would more likely be a video card problem.

 

[chibae]

Computer comes on, after a while, when issues occur lights (such as near the caps lock) flash repeatedly, not in a pattern. Display remains black, fan runs. No sounds made such as when windows starts up. I have no external monitor, don't have the cables to hook to my TV. Video card is integrated.