A couple of days ago, I had a job of restoring life to a HP nc6000 laptop, which basically was hard to start (didn't post) and would turn off by itself.
The symptoms of the problem was that once it would post, I would boot a live CD of Ubuntu (Will happen in Windows as well), it would randomly lock up on me, and once turned off, it would be hard to start again. If you ever come to play with the two models mentioned in the title, try to apply a pressure to the top right-hand side of of laptop, and while applying pressure, turn it on. If it does turn on, you have a very common problem, which will require you to have a soldering job done on it (Or hot glue for the rednecks).
There is a Maxim 1987 chip next to the CPU, under the board that has a very cheap soft soldering job done to it, and overtime, the soldering begins to have hairline cracks to it, and once that's done, the CPU Vcore (1.4V) is lost, which technically powers down the CPU (where the system freezes and becomes hard to start).
This is the chip in question:
What I've done is to tap my soldering iron on the connectors and to finish the job, I've applied a blob of hot glue, so that it would make a constant pression, if ever the chip solder were to break again. Once that is done, the laptop will be stable again. I've tested it, and even did some light bangs towards that place and it didn't even freeze one me once.
You can charge the guy/girl an easy $30 to $50 for that, or if you are given one of these, and it has that symptom, then you'll know what to do.
Just thought I'd share
The symptoms of the problem was that once it would post, I would boot a live CD of Ubuntu (Will happen in Windows as well), it would randomly lock up on me, and once turned off, it would be hard to start again. If you ever come to play with the two models mentioned in the title, try to apply a pressure to the top right-hand side of of laptop, and while applying pressure, turn it on. If it does turn on, you have a very common problem, which will require you to have a soldering job done on it (Or hot glue for the rednecks).
There is a Maxim 1987 chip next to the CPU, under the board that has a very cheap soft soldering job done to it, and overtime, the soldering begins to have hairline cracks to it, and once that's done, the CPU Vcore (1.4V) is lost, which technically powers down the CPU (where the system freezes and becomes hard to start).
This is the chip in question:
What I've done is to tap my soldering iron on the connectors and to finish the job, I've applied a blob of hot glue, so that it would make a constant pression, if ever the chip solder were to break again. Once that is done, the laptop will be stable again. I've tested it, and even did some light bangs towards that place and it didn't even freeze one me once.
You can charge the guy/girl an easy $30 to $50 for that, or if you are given one of these, and it has that symptom, then you'll know what to do.
Just thought I'd share