Pavilion 15 - BSOD, Glitchy Screen, and won't boot.

[DC193]

The laptop model is apparently a HP Pavilion 15-n096sa. This was bought as a refurbished laptop in 2017, so I imagine it's actually around 10 years old. I can't check the model number on the underside, as the label has faded so much over time I can't make it out...  I'm pretty sure it's now on Windows 10 (originally bought with Windows 8), and certainly hasn't been on Windows 11.

I came to boot it after a few months of disuse, got to the login screen (can't remember if I successfully logged in), and then gave me a BSOD. The messaged pointed to rtwlane02.sys being at fault. Shortly after the BSOD came up, the display started bugging out - lines and static, and blocks of display going out of alignment, getting increasingly worse, until it switched off. When I've tried rebooting, it won't successfully POST. The CAPS lock sign blinks three times, which looks like an indication of memory failure.

I have 2 memory sticks installed, the same ones that came with the laptop and previously worked fine. I've tried every combination of swapping them, or booting with just one stick, but there is no improvement. I guess it's unlikely both memory slots would fail at the same time, so trying to source replacement memory is unlikely to solve the issue?

What else could be at fault here? I'm guessing it could be an issue with the motherboard, or potentially a power issue (it hasn't been able to run off battery power for years, and has occassionally thrown up power issues before booting - I always assumed this was due to not detecting the battery, but maybe a symptom of something else? I also wonder if it could be an OS issue - I previously had a windows update catastrophe that nearly bricked another laptop and required a complete OS reinstall. Could an automatic attempt to upgrade to Windows 11, driver update, or updating the BIOS cause a similar issue?

This is really just a spare machine that isn't in regular use anymore, so I don't mind a bit of tinkering to get it running again or a cheap repair job. Otherwise I would just try to extract the HDD and backup any personal files still on there I want to keep hold of.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

I think you are seeing a motherboard issue. Electronics just do not store very well. its a 4th gen i5 which was introduced in 2013 so the laptop is as you guess just about 10 years old. You could buy one in working order on eBay for about $100 so there is not a lot of value in repairing it. You have actually done a very good job of troubleshooting and it's time to say last rites over it and harvest the data from it I'm afraid. Sorry for your loss.