Notebook 14inch display does noit work

[Thealfredjam]

Hello I have a headless (without built-in monitor) notebook that was running a server overnight but when I woke up and checked it, it was off. I tried booting it back up but it would just flash the on light roughly every 3 seconds. I tried getting into bois but my attempts were unsuccessful. Would really appreciate the help, Thank you in advance! 

[WAWood]

Sorry, but this is only a Community support forum for consumer issues  For Server issues, you have to contact HP Enterprise -- a separate HP company with which we have no affiliation.

[Thealfredjam]

Oh ok. I probably should have mentioned This computer has wndows 10 home and just runs a small Minecraft server. I haven't modified the computer in anyway. Would I still be required to reach out to hp enterprise support?

[WAWood]

No -- you don't have to contact HPE just to run a Minecraft server.

Here's a video from HP Support about laptops not powering on or holding a charge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDy0h9a7Jg

[Thealfredjam]

Thank you for the quick response and video link. I clicked the video and did the trouble shooting. The power light turns on but it still doesn't boot. I have a suspicious feeling this might be a motherboard issue. Should I try resting the motherboard or are there other things I can try still? 

[WAWood]

 I don't have any idea what you mean by "resting" the motherboard.  My guess is that you meant "resetting" the motherboard -- and there is no way to do that.  You reset the computer, which is really trying to reinstall Windows, and if there are any hardware issues, which it looks like there are, that reset will FAIL and trash the PC in the process.

[Thealfredjam]

oh ok, sorry the grammar mistake. Bummer reinstalling windows or the motherboard wont work. Is there anything else I can try? 

[WAWood]

OK, let's get into more details ...

If the PC does not even turn, meaning no fan, no drive noise, no video of any kind -- that is likely to be the motherboard. HP does not replace motherboards so that is going to be VERY expensive to replace -- often more than just replacing the laptop.

If it does turn on but there is no video, it could be the display has gone out and a quick way to check that is to connect an external monitor. If you get video on that but not on the laptop screen, the display has gone out. HP does not replace screens so that is going to be VERY expensive to replace -- often more than just replacing the laptop.

If it turns on, displays the HP logo, fans spin up briefly, but there is no login screen -- that generally means the windows boot files have become corrupted and/or the drive is failing. The way to check for the first is to create a boot USB stick, which will have working boot files, and see if that works. But that costs money because the app you need to have to do that only NOW exists in paid form. It used to be free, but they ended that the end of last year. We're talking $50 per year or $80 one-time purchase. That can be used to rewrite the boot files from USB stick, so if only the files are bad, that will fix it. Their website is here:

https://www.macrium.com/products/home

If that does not work, that means the drive is failing -- and that costs money to replace. HP does not replace internal drives so that is going to be VERY expensive to replace -- often more than just replacing the laptop.

But once you have a replacement drive, if your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Windows and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

You will need a working PC and a 32GB USB stick to hold the recovery files. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmtXOU40vxk

Once you have the USB stick, here's a video from HP Support about installing Win11 using a USB drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wuUEtYE9tI

[Thealfredjam]

Thanks for the detailed list. The laptop turns and off(the light turns on and the fan powers up but then it turns off after roughly 2 seconds) I don't believe windows is the problem because I cant even access the bios unfortunately.