laptop will only POST sometimes

[jdoggsc]

I'll try to make this concise.

This is strictly a hardware problem.  I use windows and linux ,but it doesn't matter because the problem occurs before/while the hardware does the Power-On Self Test (POST).

for clarification, when i say "boot", i'm not talking about an operating system booting--I'm referring to getting even to the HP boot screen that shows when you first turn your laptop on (if i can get there, then the rest of the boot process happens fine).

I have a Pavilion dv2000. It only successfully boots sometimes (like 1 in 5 times) and really only successfully boots if the AC power is in.  Otherwise it just turns on the LCD backlight and all the media lights, touchpad light,and wireless light, but will not actually show anything on the display and the hard drive activity indicator light is still.  Once it actually reaches the HP logo, i can unplug it and it will continue to run on battery.

If I remove the battery and plug in AC power, it turns on the media keys, touchpad  light and wireless light, but will not POST.  If i hold power to turn it off, and then then turn it back on again immediately aftwerward, it will not work.  It does seem to consistently work if i hold power to turn it off, wait 10 seconds or more, and then turn it on again. 

Whenever I restart my computer (using an OS to reboot) it obviously goes through the same process as with an initial startup, and will fail--just the blue lights everywhere and nothing on the (backlit) screen.  I have to force a power off and start trying over again until it boots successfully.

besides what I've described above, I haven't noticed any other correlation or pattern to it.  Is there some component on the motherboard that has gone bad? something that could possibly be fixed/replaced? Anyone encountered this before?

[jdoggsc]

bump.