HP Laptop Dead... Help GREATLY Appreciated!

[Gwydian]

My daughter (24 years old) has an HP DV2410US. Approximately October of this year (2009) it was just short of being 2 years old. She used it one night and all was well. When she tried to start it the next morning (unmoved on her desk from the night before) she found the following:
-- Light at power socket lights when plugged in to wall socket
When turned on...
-- All appropriate (as near as I can tell) LEDs light and remain lit with the exception of the hard disk light which flashes once (on - off) when I first turn on the system
-- There are no beeps and no blinking LEDs
-- Fan does not start and no sound from hard drive
-- Screen remains black and nothing ever appears on it
-- One can hear the DVD/CD drive spin twice briefly (no disk in drive)

She had made no hardware or software changes anytime close to this date... it is possible there was a Vista update in this time frame.
I did a hard reset, several times... no change
I put the HP restore disk in the drive and started the system... no change

The HP Web site is no help, bordering on the surreal... I mean, how does one read the error messages on the screen when there is no screen?

Any and all help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. However, a side note to not purchase another HP product is already well understood as I have a long series of HP horror stories from the past 2 years I could tell.

 

[patonb]

Hmm, did you have a storm going on at the time?

Was it powered on over night?

Smell the power brick.. Does it smell burnt/electrical smellish?

When you plug in the power cord, does the chargeing/plugged in light light up?

Laptops are a pain to diagnos. But I'm think that maybe a power surge got it.. was it plug into the wall, or power/surge bar?

And welcome to the forum.. unfortunate you had to sign up because of a bad issue.

 

[Lexluethar]

Also if there is never a screen that pops up perhaps your monitor has gone out. Try connecting the laptop to an external monitor.

 

[Gwydian]

Thanks for the replies. I did try plugging in an external monitor... still no picture.

I had to wait for my daughter to get the rest of teh answers...

Hmm, did you have a storm going on at the time?

Nope... no storm

Was it powered on over night?

It was not on overnight, but it was plugged in for charging

Smell the power brick.. Does it smell burnt/electrical smellish?

I smell nothing and she says there was no smell at the time it ceased working.

When you plug in the power cord, does the chargeing/plugged in light light up?

Yes it does.

was it plug into the wall, or power/surge bar?

I forgot to ask her this, but I am betting it was a wall outlet.

And welcome to the forum.. unfortunate you had to sign up because of a bad issue.

I have been here before, just reading posts. I used to build my own systems as well as helped troubleshoot and offer buying suggestions on a major internet entity as the main moderator... but it has been a couple years and I feel completely out of the loop. Thanks for the welcome!

 

[Lexluethar]

Since you see the battery actually charging I would say this isn't a power issue. Sounds like the motherboard may have fried since you aren't even getting the POST screen where you see the HP logo. Usually if there is something like a stick of ram or hard drive bad the computer would start up, but beep at you or would at least POST then give you an error.

You could try reseating the RAM in the laptop as well as reseating the hard drive. If neither of those work my belief would be that the motherboard is dead.

 

[patonb]

Actually, none of my laptops have squeeled when i forget to put the ram in.. Infact none of my lappys, 4 of them, don't even POST beep.

It'd be a good suggesting to see if you could get a stick of ram to try out incase the ram did just crap out. Fortunately ram on laptops is quite common, so if you have a second laptop youre good.

Remember that HP has a stick under the keyboard too.

 

[Gwydian]

Well, I reseated the hard drive and the RAM (according to documentation, apparently only 2 sticks accessible from a panel on bottom)... no change at all. I tried swapping RAM sticks and nothing. I am betting I am at the end of what I am able to do.

While suggestions are still most welcome, let me go to the next question here. I see a number of sites on the Web for laptop repair. They offer to do a free pickup (UPS or Fed Ex), a free diagnosis and estimate for repair. Does anyone have any caveats about these places or recommendations of which would be a best bet or a definite 'stay away from'? If you would prefer to not post this in the boards, feel free to drop me a PM or email me at gwydian[remove]@[remove]gwydian.com

Thanks for ALL your help... it is greatly appreciated.

 

[Gwydian]

I broke down and emailed HP tech... They had me pull the battery, ram, hard drive and optical drive and then try to get the cap locks key light to turn on and off. It did not. I was told this meant it would need to go in for repairs.

They went to lengths to tell me, "Also, I would like to share that HP has launched a worldwide recall process for certain models of the notebooks which has internal hardware issue or with the system board. At the HP Service Center, the HP Service Technicians have researched certain notebook models which have the similar issues and made a conclusion and released the information on the HP website and alerted all the customers through many methods and options. This process was went on for past 1 year and HP has provided the relevant solution by replacement process under “Limited Warranty Service Enhancement Program”."

And that, "... the extended one year warranty of your Notebook has expired on October of 2009. Hence, the repair will be chargeable. The standard service charge for the service is $398, however as the notebook was covered under recall, so we will offer you a discounted service charge that is $259. "

While I/we do not NEED this laptop, does anyone have a suggestion for a service center that wouldpotentially be less... or any other suggestions?

Thansk again!

 

[patonb]

I thnk that might be the best price you'll find.

Plus its reputable.

I'd say go for it if you can afford it, and want the laptop running

 

[Scrooge]

Are these the specs on the laptop?

Amazon.com: HP Pavilion DV2410US 14-inch Laptop (AMD Turion 64 Processor TL56, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium): Computer & Accessories

I would just find a new one for a little more than the repair price. Could it be possible to just swap the HDD into the new one so the info isn't lost?