HP Pavilion DV7-4177nr no boot blinking CAPS LOCK and F12 solid led amber light

[BlueNismo]

Just remembered to reply status on this forum... The chipset repair does not work. I will order a new CPU and motherboard but will try the CPU first... Will post results when this stuff arrives. However, the chipset repair method fixed 'the not reading DVD drive' issue and video display issues on a DV9910us I worked on today 🙂 Something is looking good on some of these HP's. I like these new copper shims I ordered from Ebay. I even fixed a GeForce 9800 GT today with this heat gun and copper shims. Go Ryobi Heat Gun from Home Depot! LOL! But Back to this DV7... I want to smash it, haha

[BlueNismo]

Hello,

Finally fixed the Laptop! After days of frustration, I decided to hold the F8 Key on boot for laughs and it came up with the BIOS Failed message! Don't remember exactly what it said as it is booted up now. It said to tap ENTER key to reboot and it booted up! (This did not work earlier though) Not sure if my chipset repair even did anything at all but hey, it has passed all CPU and Video stress tests today and ready to give it back to my customer. Now that it is mofified with a copper shim and all, I think my customer will be very happy to get it back and running cooler. Try it! Tap F8 continously after you hit power and if that don't work, hold F8... For reference, the Caps Lock Key was flashing every 5 seconds with blank screen and solid Amber Light on f12.. Now all good 🙂 DV7-4177NR.

[Digilee]

I'd be very interested as to whether this machine still works.  I have the same machine, same symptoms exactly.  After leaving it for several weeks at least, I tried again and it started up.  I charged the battery and turned it on and off several times, worked each time (although strangely, it did not always give the firefly startup sequence, just a blank black screen until the blue logon screen showed uip).

Over the next several days, I kept the machine turned on, but let it go to sleep after the no activity delay.  Each time I was able to wake it up again by pressing the power button once.  Until today.  Back to the same old bleep.  Sometimes the caps lock LED does the slow blink, sometimes it does not come on at all.

Tried the F8 thing with no success.  I suspect that the BIOS error BlueNismo saw was the stuck key error that yoiu will get (or used to anyway) if any key is held down during BIOS boot.

I am disappointed that changing out the hardware did not seem to help - I was just about to try that. I have cleaned out the air ducts, and installed a temperature meter - core temp never goes above 63 degrees, and usually is down around 45.

Help, HP!!!!!

[rgsgroup2005]

OK so I got this machine back and gave customer a new laptop... Figured 'd take the loss and keep this one for work since it works if I leave it on. What went wrong? As you all know it, I replaced everything and even did a chipset repair. It never gets hot at all because of the copper modification and premium IC Diamond thermal compound. In fact, if I tap power button 3-4 times on a power-cycle loop (without the charger and tapping F8) the laptop powers back up sucessfuly...... So this issue may be power related entirely (I assume the DC Jack? Keep in mind I have heated the entire board re-soldering all contacts just in case. This issue is killing me but Iwill have to figure this out!!! I'm going to order a new keyboard / entire top panel. and DC Jack... Bet one of this will solve. Does anyone with this issue experience keys skipping as you type like the spacebar? If so can be sticky keys on keyboard? Power buttons can cause this too as a cellphone repair tech, I have replaced many Samsung S2 and Nexus power buttons as they cause bootloop.Perhaps this power button is causing this problem. Anyways must be one of these 3 or combination of manufacturer defect because all else has been replaced in the past! 

[Digilee]

After leaving my last reply, I tried again.  This laptop sometimes shows the slow blink caps lock key, sometimes not.  This time the caps lock key was on solid.  I happened to press it and found that it responded to the key press, turning the light off.  I hooked up an external monitor to the VGA connector and found that the system was actually up, just no display on the laptop screen.

Fooling around a bit more, I found that when I used the 'Power-saving GPU' (the chipset built-in GPU), the laptop display returned, although at lower resolution until I disconnected the external monitor.  As soon as I switched back to the High-performance (discrete) GPU, the laptop display went blank.

Ever since, as long as I keep it on Power-saving GPU, everything works, so I suspect the High-Performance GPU is broken. 

I think that the symptoms described in this topic can be explained by several different causes.  If you experience a boot up with a blank screen and either the slow blink caps lock or solid on caps lock, you should try connecting an external monitor to see if this may be your problem.

I'm now looking to see if it is cost-effective to replace the discrete GPU.

[JTHope]

I have a HP Pavilion dv7 Model 4177-nr.  Same symtoms......CAPS LOCK blinking once every 5 sec. and amber light on f12 key, black screen, fan runs.   Error code says CPU is bad so I disassembled the laptop and replaced the CPU. Didn't work.  Nothing I tried would fix the problem; Hold f8 upon power up, tap f8 upon power up.  I decided to replace the little battery thats underneath the removable panel on the bottom.  Walla, it worked.  I was able to get the system up and running but within 10 minutes, system overheated and auto shutdown.  Tried a new little battery, nothing.....same symptoms as before.  Removed the little battery and left it out for 30 minutes.  Replaced it and the computer is working again.  Able to recover pics and other files.  Backing up the HD now, systems been running for an hour.  So far, so good.  Hope this helps.  Good luck.

[rgsgroup2005]

Try holding F8 as you power down... Then remove CMOS Battery and reverse it for 1 minute. Then place CMOS battery back in right place (you cannot have your regular battery or AC adapter plugged in for this!) Now put laptop back together and re-insert your regular battery and AC adapter. Then hold left mouse button on trackpad and hold F8 while powering back up then release all buttons... When it asks to reboot on BIOS Error, just wait and it will eventually resume boot. Then update to latest BIOS update in device support. I experimented this and works every time today on black screen. I noiticed I get the same issue each time I upgrade or replace hardware or on device power down during long useage.  This issue is definitely a BIOS error as I already did board replacements, CPU replacement, ram replacement, battery replacement, AC adapter replacement, WiFi replacement, power ribbon cable replacement, Blu-ray replacement, screen replacement, LCD ribbon cable replacement, copper shim modification with IC Diamond cooling compound from XOXIDE, fingerprint scanner replacement, and chipset re-balling! LOL...  So save the heartache on disassembly as is not issue! If problem persists after the latest update, HP needs to release a new bugfix on the BIOS! Hope this helps. 

EDIT: Had issue again and found out I had the latest BIOS UPDATE the entire time. I just stepped back to the older one (F.26) and will reply with the results later as so far running fine... If no more issues, must have been the updated bios along with all the others you all had with the latest pre-installed. 

[js2014]

Hi, I know it has been a long time since I posted, but here is the update.

I tried every imaginable thing to get this to work. I've spent more then a 100 hours on it.

Going into Dos, Bios, so on and so forth Nothing worked. I then called the local computer tech store and OH GUESS WHAT (thick sarcasm) His mothers laptop was exactly as this one was, and the same thing happened.HE spent almost 50 some odd hours on it.

The bottom line that I approached him with and he agreed with venomously towards HP ( money grabbing blood sucking company,). Is that because HP is to cheap to add 2 cents worth of thermal paste inside, because of that the heat from the computer fried the mother board.

Thermal paste is a metal paste that helps to draw the heat away.

Instead HP put in a sponge as a spaceer , a sponge that gets squished when the computer- laptop is together and has no hope of doing anything with the heat, except holding it. A sponge holds heat. That is cheap.

I said as much to the tech and he once agreed venomously again towards HP. Within two blocks of where I live two HP computers were fried, I wonder how many more out there, with people not really knowing anything about computers. [Content Removed]

[Alejo2160]

SOLUTION!!!! 

We like to think outside the box, I have fixed many laptops by performing a process called Reball, which is basically reseating the chipset to the motherboard with heat. there are several ways to do this, the one we have been using at our office is the following.

Disassamble the computer until you have the motherboard on your hand without the heatsink, locate the Southbridge chip which you can tell by just looking at the chips the heatsink touches, the largest one is the processor and usually the following in size is the one we need to fix, with foil paper shield the surroundings of the chip to avoid damaging plastic parts with the heat, pile a few coins about 8 on top of the chip to add weight and distribute heat to the chip. 

With a heatgun in medium to high, heat the coins for about 3 minutes, let it cool down, do not move it. remove the coins once it cools down, ussually that should do it but we have had better results by repeating the proccess this time without the coins, and for only minute and a half. let it cool down. reassemble tle laptop and Voila! it work maybe 80% of the time, it work for many diferent models of laptops.

Remember to use Thermal Compound when reassembling the heatsink. make sure you connect the fans and other cables.

it works even for Xbox issues.

 The problem come due to overheating over time, after several overheats the connection/soldering between the chip and the motherboard gets broken and problem happens.

Give it a shot and le us know if it worked for you,  and by the way this fix took only 1.5 hours.!! 

for more information about this and other issues, visit us! 

http://www.credocomputers.com/LaptopRepair/laptop-shutting-down-overheating

[tek2k3]

Thank You!  I was ready to give up until I saw your post.  I bought a replacement CPU after my DV7 started showing the bad CPU blink code.  After installation there was no change.  The laptop would boot to a black screen, blinking CAPS LOCK and solid F12.  Tried all sorts of key combinations to get it to do something.  Finally, just as I was about to give up I stumbled across your F8 solution.  My experience was identical to yours.  Holding down F8 after power on caused the screen to flash briefly before displaying a CMOS error.    Pressing <enter> to continue allowed it to repair the problem.  I now have a working laptop again.