Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Ok, so I am almost without a computer now, which is not a good place to be! Here're the problems ...

Laptop
Once upon a time I was happily using my laptop when the dog decided to come over and head butt it like a rhino. The impact can only be described as heinous. The screen went ape **** green, and since then it flickers and sometimes just goes white and the compo locks. Suspect possibly a loose screen cable or something, but haven't really been able to open the laptop up.

I can deal with that, but now it has also developed and intermittent start up issue. It normally takes about 20 attempts over 10 - 15 minutes with a combination of taking out battery and power cable, random waits, pressing the power button, failing, repeating until it finally boots. The failed start up symptom is all the lights coming on, and HD spinning up noise, but no loading and totally blank screen (no power to screen). Leaving it shows no sign of life apart from the LEDs and spinning HD.

There is no obvious way to get it to start. Just keep repeating trying to turn it on and eventually it'll work, sometimes with a few goes, sometimes 20 or more.

Aside from that, it runs fine, and the screen flickering thing has actually mostly gone now.

Desktop

Desktop died today. I was using it and it just went off like there was a powercut, with no warning. I checked the lights and power was on. Tried again and it powered up for a few seconds then just died again.

I assumed overheat (although wasn't doing anything heat intensive and have a really cool case with loads of fans), so took off all the side panels and let it cool. I then tried to power it up again.

I now get the mem test done, and the HD/Sata devices connected, and then it says "System boot fail". It gives me two options F1 to continue or F8 for boot setup. No keyboard input works, so I can't select these options or the other boot options that are presented right at the start.

I've tried inserting the Win7 CD but it won't boot from it or even read it before I see the boot fail. So I have no means of providing any input at all to even play at fixing this one.

Any suggestions on either? I'm pretty fecked considering I was literally about to take some freelance software dev work!!

It's not been my day, aside from winning the Euromillions last weekend, but not sure how that'll help me. :rolleyes:

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

plugging your laptop into the external monitor to see if it's jut the screen not booting?

Or borrow my old bag of crap Tower if you're desperate for anything that cranks along.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

run diagnostic tools on both and find out what the issue is

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

That's a good idea, though I suspect if it's GPU related, it wouldn't work on an external monitor. But perhaps there is some communication between the GPU and LCD which is failing. Worth a try.

Job's help on the other hand was about as useful as a squirrel in a handbag. Do you mean for the desktop or laptop? What diagnostic tools? How do I run them? :smt073

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

yes run diagnostics. on the net and on manufacturers websites you will finding testing tools for: RAM, HDD, GPU, CPU. It will run tests to check all the components and check for faults, a good one for HDD's is sea tools (by Seagate)

At work tomorrow i'll see if I can grab a copy of them from tech for you

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

how would one run these tools without a working PC or laptop?

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

With a PC you would install the components into that of a working PC (component by component) to check.

with a laptop you could swap out the ram & HDD, the rest I am not too familiar with, hence why I do the selling not the tech, again I can chat to my tech bods to find out the procedure.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Unless the laptop was the highest spec version then most will take a processor upgrade. Not the easiest to do. Gpu is on the mobo if its goosed then a reball would be a fix but not cost effective.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Unfortunately it sounds like motherboards for both :(


Laptops have everything "on-board" these days, initially it sounded like a screen connection problem but if it won't output to a second display then it's most likely GPU which is either processor or motherboard chipset depending on the age of the machine.


The desktop initially sounded like the PSU had given up, but again if you're getting a "help something's ballsed" F1 prompt on boot and the keyboard doesn't work then it's something more serious. The PC's BIOS looks after USB inputs so IMO if the PC isn't responding to the keyboard at that initial stage of booting up then either the motherboard is knackered (seems likely given the power issues also) or the PSU or CPU are on their way out and have somehow reset the BIOS config, which might've disabled legacy USB keyboard support stopping your keyboard from doing anything useful. Another keyboard may help test that just to get into the PC's BIOS but I'd go with motherboard again :(

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Ball bags! Yes, the mobo does sound like the culprit for the desktop. The compo is fairly old, so perhaps overheated and cooked something on it. It was built with top components back in the day, but it's had a lot of use.

I'll try and find another keyboard for the desktop and see if that helps. I am using a wireless one, which obviously makes it difficult to confirm whether there's an issue with the keyboard or not (I have changed batteries and reconnected). I'll see if I can source a normal USB one.

As for the lappy, it still works perfectly fine. I probably need to have another bash at getting inside it to see if anything is loose after it's rhino charge. I'll try the secondary monitor trick first though.

Thanks for the thoughts gents!

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Ahh, you've not tried the 2nd output on the laptop yet? Righto.

With regards to a USB keyboard, try to get your hands on as simple a keyboard as possible. With one of my PCs at home it never wwants to take inputs from my Razer keyboard until it's booted into Windows but with a standard Dell keyboard borrowed from work it's absolutely fine.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Have you got a PS2 keyboard (old school round pin plug rather than USB) It may at least let you get to a windows disc repair if you can press F8 which you may be unable to do if it's not getting as far as loading the USB drivers.

Or try forcing the dog into the DVD drive slot. It probably won't help fix it but will make you feel a lot better give it's all the dog's fault anyway!

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

I think your computers are disgusted with all the filth you look at. May i suggest "SafeSearch - ON" in the future.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

I found a brand new PS2 keyboard in the attic (brand new from like 2007!) and that has got the desktop booting. I suspect it overheated or something. Then I switched it on too soon. It overheated mid boot, and shut off again. Then because of that failed boot, it brought up the error screen, but I've not been able to F1 Continue past it with my USB kb. After a reboot it's all fine now. Sweet!

Laptop still fecked.

@Clive - I've slowly build up my PCs immunity to horrible degrading porn over the years. Now it's totally desensitized!

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Replace the CMOS battery on the desktops motherboard.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

The drivers for the wireless keyboard probably wont load until windows is loading so you need to use a wired keyboard to get into the BIOS etc.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Ignore my second post but still replace the CMOS battery (or at least check the voltage) as this may have been a contributing factor to the failed boot.

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Good news on the desktop! :)

Re: Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!
 

Desktop is fine again Phil, but the MB battery for the laptop might be a shout. The whole on/off 1 million times before it boots up hints at some sort of power issue, so perhaps the MB battery is the issue.