HP Touchsmart 300-1020 Powers up, blank screen, never boots

[PCLoadLetter]

Hey everyone.  I am using an HP Touchsmart 300-1020.  It was working fine, one morning when turning it on the fans powered up, they were clearly spinning to fast as they were really loud, but the screen was black.  No logo, no bios no beeps.  I do not know what has cause this problem as we have never had a single problem with this computer.  I would like to know if it is an issue with the CPU, Video card, or the motherboard?  What can be done to fix this? 

[user1976]

Exact same thing happened to me in May...just 1 month out of warranty. The computer repair people found that my hard drive had burnt out and had to replace it completely. And the hard drive was completely gone so there was no way to recover anything, so I lost all of my files, including my client files. The worst part was that he told me that it was common among 'the new hp' and how hp was getting a lot of their parts made in china now and that it is widely known that they are only good for around a year. I don't know how true that is, but I do know that I know how you are feeling right now, and I hope that your outcome is better than mine was.

[dianebrat]

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@user1976 wrote:

Exact same thing happened to me in May...just 1 month out of warranty. The computer repair people found that my hard drive had burnt out and had to replace it completely. And the hard drive was completely gone so there was no way to recover anything, so I lost all of my files, including my client files. The worst part was that he told me that it was common among 'the new hp' and how hp was getting a lot of their parts made in china now and that it is widely known that they are only good for around a year. I don't know how true that is, but I do know that I know how you are feeling right now, and I hope that your outcome is better than mine was.

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Pretty much everything is made in China at some point, HP is no different from any of teh other computer manufacturers in this regard. There's no "new HP" nor is the comment about them only being "good for a year" accurate.

All computer manufacturers have gone to making their product lines cheaper and cheaper over the past 10 years. Oh.. and most common failure in computers? no matter what brand? hard drive, no one should ever depend on a single hard drive as safe for their business data, backup early, backup often.

[user1976]

Like I said, I don't know how accurate the repair company's evaluation of hp was, but it did match up to my experience pretty accurately.

In my sittuation, I had been a LONG time Hp supporter and since my (at the time) 5 year old hp pavillion desktop and my 7 year old hp pavillion laptop had performed with out issue for years, I thought nothing about paying $1300 for the touchsmart because I believed that it would perform like my other two hps. Infact, 6 months after I bought my touchsmart, I bought 2 hp laptops for my kids so I don't think there are many that believed in hp more than I.

True, a hard drive should never be your only resource for accessing files-lesson learned. Still, no one should spend that much money and just expect it to go to pot in less than 14 months.

As for 'everybody' going to china for cheap parts-a)didn't Hp's mom tell them about not doing what everybody else is doing....something about jumping from a bridge, I recall, and b)actually, the repair company gave me some manufacturers that do not go to china for everything and a few that do go through china, but only through reputable and proven suppliers, not the bottom of the barrel, which he claims that hp does as of late. Again, I don't know-just saying.

At the end of the day, losing a hard drive in a nearly new computer sucks and no one should be expected to shrug it off and accept it as part of 'the way it is'...clearly, it hasn't happened to you...yet. I hope it isn't what's happening to the original poster because it stinks.

[Kate_Tech]

Instead of a blame game, let's try something productive.  I really suspect that you have lost the hard drive, but just in case, try the steps in this document.  This saved me a couple of weeks ago; it may help you.  This procedure will restore the default settings of the BOIS.  And, no harm done if nothing happens.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02217843

Good luck to you.

[girlygirle2002]

Yah I just got mine 4 weeks ago to the day. After 2 weeks it just did this. So we got the recovery discs.  It seems to me that the bios that came loaded say 2/10 and the new are 3/11. I think what it is for me is everytime we updated the graphics it crashed since the bios were old. I won't be updating them in the future. It took about 5 recoveries to come to this conclusion, I maybe wrong but well it would run smoothly untill they updated.

So I wanted to do the old "flash the bios", but alas you have to do it from you desktop which if you can't get into your desktop well, your {Content Removed: Language Filter Evasion} Lets hope that the bios update I did last night stayed with it and I don't have redo this {Content Removed: Language Filter Evasion} again. This is turning out to be one of the biggest wastes of money I have dropped to date. If I didn't spend so much on it I would chuck it  out the window.

[user1976]

And did you hear the Hp news?

"HP's PC Departure: The Good News and Bad News for Microsoft" http://t.co/XtKe35r on CIO.com"

Hp made crap computers, crap tablets and now they are abandoning those of us that have sunk money into them with no life vest. It only takes 3 seconds of going over the titles in these posts to see what {Content Removed: Language Filter Evasion} they have produced. How much support do you think they are going to offer us as these "Horrible Products" keep failing now that they moved on?

Nice way to take our money and run HP ... I'm glad the stocks are down, I hope they bottom out.  

[Cjmguitarist87]

Hello all!

I am a Electronics specialist, and I repair many computers and electronics....

I had a touchsmart 300 with the black screen problem. Now i already knew they had an overheating problem. I searched the problem and came here with no help.

I am glad to say the touchsmart works fine now.

The processor was lifted from its seat on the motherboard.. I disassembled the pc, removed the heat sink and the processor came up with it. I cleaned the ols paste off the sink and processor. re sat it, put artic silver on it, and boom. Works like a charm.

[sesie1234]

Same thing happened to me.  I had hp touchsmart 300  for 15 months out of warranty, HP got me to purchase 1 year warranty trouble shooted and than computer diagnosed with failed harddrive. Tried to sell me a new harddrive and then a computer. This is my 2nd hp in 2 years, no way! I bought a mac and love it....

[okmb]

This same thing has also happened to me. My touchsmart began freezing up and then going to blank/black screen at 10 months of use. After hour after hour, day after day of troubleshooting on the phone with HP tech support - outsourced to India - HP finally agreed to take my computer for repair. They told me they would have the computer for several weeks unless I paid them $50 to expedite the repair! The hard drive was replaced - it was a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 - they have been having problems with these hard drives since 2009. HP replaced my hard drive with another Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 - this one began to fail at 60 days of use!! I called HP and they refused to take the computer back for repair - I was still barely under warranty so I wanted it replaced before the warranty ran out. I was told that I needed to go thorough all of the troubleshooting again  - this will buy you short periods of time with function until your computer begins to freeze up again. This troubleshooting never fixes anything it just helps HP push you past your warranty end so they can change you to replace the faulty parts that they've put in your computer. The HP tech also lied to me and told me not to worry about my warranty expiring because I had called before the warranty end with the same issues that initially sent my computer in for repair. HP did not honor this promise, they told me I was responsible for all repairs. I had to fight to get my call escalated and after explaining the situation I was told over and over "you're out of warranty". HP finally offered $150 off of the repair - I was told it would cost me $300-$400 to repair the hard drive again. I refused to pay for any repair, I was later offered and "extended warranty" if I purchased another HP computer. I let HP know that I would never be buying another HP product - that I had lost all confidence in their products and their ability to provide actual customer service. I would rather toss my computer in the garbage than pay HP another dollar. When you spend $1000 on a computer you should get more than 10 months use out of it. These computers are garbage and HP needs to stop selling them.