Notebook stuck at Boot screen with CAPS Blinking

[Lahiri]

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion DV6 3065EA notebook which I bought way back in Dec'2010. It had come preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. Off-late I am facing a strange problem. When I turn on my Notebook the Fan, HDD get powered on but the screen is off with no power and the CAPS lock keeps blinking infinitely with 3-4 secs interval. The Notebook obviously doesn't start and the Wi-Fi light, Power and HDD LED's are all amber.

Since the Notebook is out of warranty I sent it for repairs to my local PC repair shop. I am currently in India. They fixed the problem and said that it was a Motherboard issue and they had repaired it. I started using the Notebook and the problem recurred in 5 days. This time my PC repair shop guy told me that I had a grounding issue in my electric point and hence the previous issue which was fixed recurred. They again fixed it for me saying the same old Motherboard problem. But this time I noticed that they had opened my screen.

Since my CAPS LED blink pattern doesn't match with any standard patterns as mentioned in your website on diagnostic LED's, I am unable to actually find out the true cause of my problem. I still speculate this to be a problem with my screen and presume that if this problem recurrs I may still be able to boot my Notebook with an external monitor by presiing FN + F4 during boot.

This is my 3rd day with the Notebook still working fine. I don't want to dump my notebook completely if it is only a screen issue and if there is an alternate solution.

Need your expert assitance in diagnosing the problem.

Thanks,

Lahiri

[iChester]

If the system BIOS gets currupted then a similar blink code pattern can occur.  Your system may support BIOS recovery via the following instructions in the link below:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02693833

[ChrisT]

Hi,

Please take a look at this document: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c01732674

How many blinks occur before the 3-4 second wait?

[Lahiri]

Hi Chris,

It just Blinks once every 3-4 secs and this process continues infinitely.

-Lahiri

[Lahiri]

Hi,

Thanks for this! So the next time I face the same problem I will try the BIOS recovery. At that time I can accept this as a solution.

Thanks,

Lahiri!

[rex1409]

In my experience this problem has most often been caused by overheating due to dust/fluff collecting in the fan assembly. This causes problems with the GPU chip on the Motherboard as the solder joints deteriorate when constanly melting and cooling. A 'quick fix' can be to reflow the solder using special equipment called a BGA rework station, but the repair is not guaranteed and often only lasts a short tme. Better to fit a new chip or at least re-ball the chip with fresh solder balls. Perhaps you could request this from your Repairer. Also it is necessary to disassemble the cooling fan to remove any fluff build up with a soft brush and compressed air. A useful tip is buy a tin of compressed air and regularly blow any dust out of the fan outlet and inlet before it has any time to build up. Never use your notebook on any other than a hard, clean surface. Check your temperatures with Speccy

https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download/standard

They should never exceed 70 deg C if all is well with your cooling fan...

Hope this helps

[Lahiri]

After several months the problem has started recurring again. The Notebook refuses to power on and the CAPS LED keeps blinking infinitely with the following light status -

Wi-Fi LED F12 - AMBER

Speaker Mute LED F11 - No Light

Power LED - AMBER

HDD LED - WHITE

I have observed that the WI-Fi and Speaker MUTE LED generally turn AMBER during boot when everything is ok. The only way the Notebook now powers on occassionally is by doing a Hard Reset (Disconnect Power, Remove Battery and Discharge off charge by keeping Power Button pressed for 15 secs.). 

Once the Notebook is successful in powering on, it continues to shutdown and power up correctly for the entire day. But the very next day, after overnight shutoff the problem repeats.

I have reflashed the BIOS through Windows. I have also tried doing a BIOS recovery during boot, but that doesn't work with my Notebook atleast. I have also disabled the High Performance GPU in Windows. With all Fan cleaning happening few months back, I don't think the GPU temperature is the issue.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

[rex1409]

All the classic symtoms of a failed GPU through constant overheating and cooling. Once this happens it usually is permanent, so yours is a bit odd. What temps are you getting on Speccy? I suspect the only cure is to replace your System Board, but that is expensive and quite tricky, though I'm happy to talk you through it...

Regards

Cheapest I could find

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/595133-001-For-HP-DV6-DV6T-Laptop-motherboard-With-ATI-Video-Card-Hig...

Matches your HD5470 Graphics...

[Lahiri]

Hi Rex,

Thanks for responding. 

Speccy reports the CPU temperature as 61 degrees C and Motherboard temperature with 1 - 2 degrees lower. This is after running my notebook continuously for the past 8 hours.

The 595133-001 is the correct part number of my Motherboard. I have also found that I can also use the Motherboadr with part number 595135-001. The only confusion which I currently have is that the one's being sold online are not new but repaired one's. Is that right.

It actually turns out to be cheaper for me to replace the Motherboard rather than buying a completely new Notebook, since don't want to shell off more money this year 🙂 BTW....I have dismantled my Notebook completely once so am aware of the process. But will definitly check with you if I need help.

Thanks,

Lahiri

[rex1409]

Certainly won't get a new laptop for the price of a System Board! You'll have to remove the CPU to fit the new board, in case you haven't attempted that before, you need Thermal Paste and cleaning fluid. There are good videos on youtube for applying paste. (I use Arctic Silver)...

New boards are expensive and difficult to find. If you buy from China you don't have to 'accept' it for several weeks, means if it fails in that period you are entitled to return it. I've only had one failure, provided you return it with the address in Chinese characters as well as English it will arrive in return for a full refund.

The  595135-001 board is a poor cousin of the one you have, it utilises your RAM rather than dedicated Graphics memory. Probably cheaper, but you get what you pay for. In fact you could upgrade your graphics by choosing 631081/2-001 if desired, the probable advantage would be better game handling or video editing.