Black screen

[princethorpe]

My son has a preaserio CQ61 310SA . On turn on leds flash near pg up and caps lock flash, Power light on, fans on cd searches if one inserted. HDD doesnt appear to fire up. The screen remains black. Ive tried a hard reset several times no good. I've tried booting with mains no battery or battery no AC. As an aside if the mains is plugged in without the battery the mains led on the front of the laptop remains dim. The led lights if battery fitted and AC connected. (may be a red herring). I cant access the bios with f10. I've tried connecting an external screen this fails to display. Google postings point to a corrupt bios. How can I flash the bios? The DVD drive appears to be reading but the process would need to be automatic as i have no visability. USB is an option but as you will appreciate I will have to do this blind.  Any other suggestions appreciated.

PS There hasnt been any new software or hardware fitted.

[Scolton]

If all of those leds flash, It sounds to me as if the BIOS is starting up just find, but you may have a dead video card or motherboard. As for flashing the BIOS I am not sure how to do that without a working operating system.

[princethorpe]

Thanks for the lightening quick reply. This perhaps causes more problems than it cures if indeed the BIOS is OK. As with most of these things it's ok if you have 2 so you can fault by swapping. Otherwise it comes down to when do you write it off? Which always seens a shame and waste. The bios download on the HP site indicates that the bios upgrade is to cure the problem I have ok if you can get it to boot atleast once. Perhaps others might have a clue.

.Thanks again

[Scolton]

If it were me, I would first try removing all external things, such as disk drives, unplug USB Flash drives, perhaps remove battery and run from AC if you are laptop. Continue to try to reboot while I try for other answers. I will be here.

--As I wrote this, I realized that you DO have a laptop and you said that earlier, and you also said that you have tried to run from AC only.  I apologise for my bad reading.

[Scolton]

Got something. If you are laptop, and HP laptop, look for something on the bottom of your laptop labeled "HP Protectsmart". Try to remove that panel. Underneath, you should have your Wireless card, hard drive, ram, etc. You will also see a button cell battery labeled "CR2035" or something like that. Remove that, and wait ~30 Minutes. Then put it back in and restart the computer. See if that helps.

--Once again, I realize that you do have a laptop, duh.

[princethorpe]

Hi, Just to hi-light what I've already tried.

Swapping ram and trying to boot with only on bank fitted. removing HDD and booting from CD. Such a little box such a big pain.

Thanks again

[Scolton]

Laptops can be annoying that way.

Got something. If you are laptop, and HP laptop, look for something on the bottom of your laptop labeled "HP Protectsmart". Try to remove that panel. Underneath, you should have your Wireless card, hard drive, ram, etc. You will also see a button cell battery labeled "CR2035" or something like that. Remove that, and wait ~30 Minutes. Then put it back in and restart the computer. See if that helps.

--Once again, I realize that you do have a laptop, duh.

[princethorpe]

Sorry has made no difference. If it helps flashing leds are flash 2 seconds flash 5 secs  then repeat

[Scolton]

Could you give me the link to the bios flash download?

[princethorpe]

Hi,

From the HP site http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-84080-1&cc=uk&dlc=en&lc=en&...=

Thanks