HP TouchSmart 610 black screen on boot

[willthorpe04]

I recently reinstalled Windows 7 on a TouchSmart 610 (side note – I was unable to find many drivers which worked for it). I then installed Ubuntu 21.04 (latest version, not LTS) and set it to dual boot with Windows. After installing I faced a playback issue while attempting to play a video on YouTube and subsequently turned the computer off with the power button. The next time I turned it on the fan responded but the screen remained black.

Any help is appreciated.

[itsmyname]

@willthorpe04 - something to try:

1. power-off the computer
2. disconnect the power-cord (or disconnect the external power-adapter)
3. press the ON/OFF button, to drain any residual electrical power
4. reconnect the power-cord, or reconnect the external power-adapter
5. press the ON/OFF button, to see if the computer will power-on, and run the POST (Power On Self Test). The screen will stay dark until the POST successfully completes. Does anything appear on the screen, such as "press ESC for options" ?

Tell us the result.

[willthorpe04]

I've attempted this several times to no avail. The screen stays blank and it seems the computer shuts down eventually (I could be wrong on the last point, I only noticed that when I attempted it just now)

[itsmyname]

@willthorpe04 -- one of your computer's components has failed:

• power-supply (it outputs several different voltages. Maybe, only a partial failure.)
• motherboard
• processor

For an All-In-One computer, replacing the motherboard or the processor is very expensive -- hundreds of dollars. 

If you have an external power-supply, you are looking at $50 to $100 to replace it.

Seek help from a qualified computer technician.

Probably, your disk-drive is 100% OK. It can be extracted from the computer, and you can copy all your personal files from it.

[willthorpe04]

Could it be that the disk drive is the issue? Before I wiped the pre-existing copy of Windows 7 (the computer was given to me in working, albeit slow, condition) I encountered an error while trying to partition the disk and had to run chkdsk on startup. Later I wiped the drive to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 (I had issues installing drivers too, not sure if this is related or if the drivers were simply not a match) and finally I partitioned the drive from the Ubuntu installer to dual boot Windows and Ubuntu.

[itsmyname · Accepted solution]

@willthorpe04 -- The next time I turned it on the fan responded but the screen remained black.

When you power-on the computer, it first runs the POST (Power On Self Test), which checks the hardware, including the disk-drive. If the disk-drive does not respond, the POST does not complete, and your screen will stay "dark". Or, there might be some other hardware problem (power-supply, motherboard, CPU, graphics adapter) that causes the POST to _not_ complete.

Try disconnecting the power & data cables from your disk-drive, and power-on your computer, to see if the POST successfully completes.

[willthorpe04]

I removed the hard disk and unfortunately the issue still persists. If there’s nothing else I can do I’ll have the unit looked at. Thanks for the help!

[itsmyname]

@willthorpe04 -- You're welcome.

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