My Laptop Died

[Tui]

Well, a little more than a year after I got my laptop, it has died.

I just finished installing a wireless network in my house and was restarting the thing. A message came up saying something along the lines of "Windows did not start up properly yada yada yada" It gave me the options of attempting to run it again normally, run it in safe mood, or run it with the last settings of when it last worked well.

Tried them all, but nothing worked. For a split second a bluish screen popped up saying something about dumping physical memory. I kept trying to start the thing but it never went through, and then finally this morning I pushed the power button and nothing happened...nothing.

I've done virus checks recently and spyware checks, and it came back clean everytime.

I'm not very happy right now.

[Monorail Man]

Re: My Laptop Died

Sounds like either a hardware issue, or a driver gone bad. Looks like it's time to backup the data, and reinstall Windows.

[Tui]

Re: My Laptop Died

Sounds like either a hardware issue, or a driver gone bad. Looks like it's time to backup the data, and reinstall Windows.

How do I back up the data when I can't get the computer to turn on? Same question about loading windows.

I don't care about losing the stuff I have on it, they are all assignments that I've already turned in and been graded on, and then some pictures that I have on CDs. So I would have no problem wiping it clean and starting over.

[Druggas]

Re: My Laptop Died

Time to seek professional help.

[aimster]

Re: My Laptop Died

Time to call the Geek Squad.

[flynnibus]

Re: My Laptop Died

How do I back up the data when I can't get the computer to turn on? Same question about loading windows.

I don't care about losing the stuff I have on it, they are all assignments that I've already turned in and been graded on, and then some pictures that I have on CDs. So I would have no problem wiping it clean and starting over.

Start by

- pulling the battery and try powering it only via the AC outlet
- try booting off the recovery media or windows CD.. whatever your laptop shipped with

Check the simple things.. really easy to overlook when angry... that the power plug is in the power brick all the way.. cord is seated.

If your battery has a LED guage, check it and try running the laptop without AC, etc.

Basically start eliminating potential sources. You said it doesn't do anything.. not even lite up the LCD with the bios boot?

Last thing to try is to pull out the hard drive and try booting it without the HD in. Sometimes when a HD is funky or the cabling is, it can pull the system down all the way to not power up. Pop out the HD, and see if it powers up w/o it plugged in. Then if it does, put it back in, and try with it in.

[All Aglow]

Re: My Laptop Died

Tui, that's what I was going to suggest you try first. If nothing at all happens, take the battery out and try to power up with only the power cord. It's amazing how many times this has fixed a problem like this, when you might think the laptop is gone completely. It's even booted up just fine and continued working for a long time afterward.

What kind of laptop is it?