Pavilion dv5, freezes immediately on boot-up screen

[akaid]

Background

Purchased December 2008 (bye-bye, warranty)

Windows Vista

dv5t-1000

Everything on the laptop has mostly been working fine until about Friday night.  I was finished with what I was doing and Windows Update bugged me to 'restart' my computer.  Until the laptop began to reboot, I subconsciously thought that the laptop was just going to shut down.  I pressed the power button to power it off quickly, though this definitely had some negative repercussions.

Issue

I tried powering on my laptop some time during the weekend and it has only hit the first screen (HP logo and 'Press the ESC key for Startup Menu').  It freezes on this screen and absolutely will not go any further.  The LED for the processor activity (next to the LEDs for power and battery charging) also ceases any activity, telling me that nothing is going on at all.

What I've Tried

1. I tried pressing the ESC key, of course.  What happens is that it changed the text to 'ESC...Pause Startup'.  Again, it freezes and does nothing.

2. I've also tried pressing other buttons like F8 (does nothing), F1 (changes text to something else), F2 (same as F1), and F9 (same as F1).

3. Pressing F8 repeatedly (or any other button repeatedly or holding it down) prompts the computer to beep constantly.

I've never had this sort of problem in the past.  I'm actually pretty sure that I've powered off the system a few times like that without incident.  I know, it's frowned upon, but sometimes I genuinely do not have the time to wait for it to load back up and power it off properly.  I definitely deserve a slap on the wrist, but certainly there is another cause for this?

I'm almost positive that it's BIOS or motherboard related, though I'm not for sure.  Any light that you can shed on this is greatly appreciated.  I'm a student and just went on Spring break this week, so I'm kinda relying on my laptop to get me through the semester and the rest of college...

Thanks in advance,

Alan

[compenthusiast]

Hi akaid, first try this:

1-remove power cord and battery

2-press power button for 20 seconds

3-reinstall battery and power cord

4-power on

Then if necessary read this article about blink codes; are you getting them? Read the full document, please.

Hope this helps.

Next consider the recovery disc; did you make one? HP can send you one, if necessary.

Good luck, and reply back with your progress.

[akaid]

Hey, thanks for the fast reply compenthusiast.  I actually read the article last night and haven't been able to discern any sort of blinks coming from any of the LEDs.  The only blinks that occur are from the CPU LED, which blinks when a CD is in the CD-ROM drive (and is trying to read the CD initially, I would assume).

After disconnecting the power cord and battery, pressing the power button for 20 seconds, and reconnecting the power cord and battery, I saw no change at all: the system was still stuck on the same HP screen.  And I was unable to see any LED blinks as well.

After inserting the first recovery disc that came with the laptop, not much really happened.  Like usual, upon startup, the CPU LED blinked a couple of times (for maybe the first 2-3 seconds) and stopped.  I can hear the CD spinning faster initially (as if it's being read by the CPU), and one of the fans gets audibly louder.  But after this, nothing has happened.  Still back at square one.

I figure that I might also suggest that the hard drive has simply gone bad or a fan has stopped working.  I suggest a fan for two reasons:  1) On another laptop (different brand nonetheless), I found a dangling wire to be between two fan blades causing the fan to remain still.  2) The rear of the laptop grew unusually warm in the time frame of about 5 minutes of leaving it on.  I don't normally handle the rear of the laptop, so I can't necessarily gauge whether or not this deviates from the norm.  

I know I have a laptop hard drive enclosure somewhere around my house, so I suppose I could always test whether or not the hard drive is working.  Until then, I'm all ears.  And again, thanks for the quick response.

edit: This may sound cheap, but my goal is to fix this problem myself.  I feel like top dollar was paid for such a nice laptop only for something to happen just outside the warranty.  Sending the laptop in to HP would not only be an inconvenience, but it's just not financially feasible for me.

[compenthusiast]

Hi akaid, thanks for replying back with your progress.

My laptop was just revived from a black screen (a harware update from Windows I believe); my pc would not boot from DVD/CD. I kept going back to Bios (F2 on my PC) and looking/changing to see if I could get a response. I finally had a choice somewhere to re-set Bios to factory settings, and it finally let me boot from DVD, and startup repair would run and diagnose, and try to fix the PC.

It gave me plenty of choices, from recovering from an image (which did not work) to finally starting all over from scratch; re-installing Win-7 over the old Win7.

I'm not saying these may be your problems, just suggesting a route to take. Try booting to bios and see if it can be changed/reverted to factory specs if it will help (try everything eles first)

I have immediately made a backup image, and keep the recovery disc aound, just in case!

The new hard drive, or testing this drive outside the PC seems like a safe bet; good luck and reply back, as always.

Maybe someone geek-ier than me will pipe in with a better solution.

[Anandaraj]

Hi Akaid, I too have the same problem on my HP Pavilion dv6-1030us. Please upldate if you could fix this problem. Thanks.

[akaid]

Well, I'm unable to get past the first screen by any means whatsoever.  So trying to reset the bios to factory settings is likely out of the question.  Doing any kind of bios changes just isn't possible.  I wish the screen would eventually change to the bios settings after pressing F2, but nothing happens.  Nothing happens after I press anything.

And in case I'm unclear about what screen I'm stuck at, it is the very first one (the HP intro screen that appears very briefly before anything else).

Checking the hard drive has proven to be unfeasible, too.  I couldn't find my hard drive enclosure, and my other laptop uses an IDE hard drive, whereas the HP uses a SATA hard drive (the connectors are different, so I wouldn't be able to test the hard drive).

For the most part, I pretty much need some files from my laptop by Tuesday night.  If anyone else has some ideas, I'm open to suggestions.  Otherwise, I'll probably have to buy a hard drive enclosure to get the files off of the hard drive (assuming that the hard drive isn't the problem...)

In the mean time, I think I'll open a support ticket at HP and see where things go from there.  I'll post back with any helpful updates.  Much thanks for the help, compenthusiast.

[akaid]

Alright, I happened to talk to a support representative on the HP chat.  Here's the breakdown:

The rep I talked to advised me to, first, turn off my laptop, remove the battery, and hold down the power button for 60 seconds.  Then, put the adapter in, turn on the laptop, and see if it runs.  If not, then you'll have to do what I did: reseat the RAM sticks.

Take out the adapter, flip over your laptop, and take out the screw(s) that hold in your RAM (the graphic on the compartment looks like 2 small squares, side by side).  There are little metal clips that hold in the RAM.  Push the clips aside and the RAM should kinda pop up a little bit.  Take the RAM stick off of the connector, and remove the other stick (if you have two sticks, which you probably do).  Now, put them back in their respective places.  I had a hard time doing this because of the metal clips, but using something small like a small flathead screwdriver should work fine.  Make sure that the RAM gets in the connectors snug, too.  It will probably look like the sticks aren't in there good enough, but they probably are (just take note of how they look before you remove them, and more importantly, don't try to use a lot of force to reseat them because they're delicate).

Now put back in your adapter and power on.  Give it a second, and it shouuuuuuuld start to load up.  If it doesn't load up at first, try reseating the RAM sticks again.

I got the support representative to tell me why this works.  Pressing the power button for 60 seconds removes any static electric charge on the keyboard, battery, and adapter.  Removing and reseating the RAM sticks also removes any static electricity, which is what my problem was.

@Anandaraj: Let me know how your problems go.  If this doesn't solve it, then definitely give the HP support a try.  The support rep that I talked to was Devi Srikanth, who was very helpful and knowledgeable.  Keep a small philips-head screwdriver around, too, in case they go through the same procedure with you.  Even through asking Devi small questions after my problem was fixed, it only took me ~45 minutes total for everything.

Good luck!

[AnonymousHelp]

Pro tip time , he was on the right track but maybe didn't completely fix the issue .

Grab a dryer sheet or something to take away your static cling .

I work at an HP satellite and this method works .

1. Remove the battery and power cable .

2. Remove BOTH sticks of RAM .

3. Remove the HDD (hard drive) and wireless card .

4. Remove the ODD (dvd drive) .

5. Turn on the unit . You will notice the caps and number pad lights flash 3 times , then repeat itself .

6. Turn the unit back off .

Here's where things get tricky .

7. Find your CMOS battery , looks like a larger version of a watch battery and will be held by a small plastic device welded to the motherboard .

Near that location you will see (most likely anyway) two small metal welds that look like triangles  "<>" pointing opposite each other . Take a small flat head screwdriver and place it between them and slowly turn it until it rests on both arrows at once . Leave it there about 15 seconds .

If they are not there and you see two copper colored triangles press the screwdriver down with mild amounts of force to bridge the gap .

8. Replace ONE stick of RAM .

9. Plug in the power and start the unit , IMMEDIATELY pressing F10 as soon as you see the logo .

10. Smile . You should now be on your BIOS screen and seeing seconds tick off your life . 😃

11 . Carefully replace all your components that you removed .

12. Find this post again and give me kudos . My first night here , and hopefully not my last . It took a week of replacing motherboards for no reason to tech that one out .

If that doesn't work , rinse and repeat , sometimes it takes more than once for it to clear whatevers wrong with it . I'm a tech , not an engineer , so please don't ask me why , i just figured out the how's .

Really hoping this helps you guys .

[Vonkamakari]

I am also suffering the same problem and have tried the 60 sec pushing the power button method but still have no luck. A friend also encountered the same problem last last month and took the laptop to hp customer service, they were able to fix it after 10 days and they said that it was some hardware problem. They also reformatted her hd and asked her to pay for some software thing. I seriously just want my laptop to be fixed but i don't want to tinker with its insides haha hp may also reformat my hd T_T

[phoniex00069]

Come Here mate will this work for the HDX X16-1310EA?  My laptop boots to the hp logo and noting happens i cant enter the bios

all the lights come on but there is no go