HP Pavilion dv6000 not booting

dtokez · 23 Jun 2011 at 13:18

Hi all, I'm looking at a laptop for my missus grandad - its a HP as stated in the title.

When you power it up (mains, battery or both) the screen does not come on at all, and it makes two loud beeps after a few seconds - still no screen.

I have tried press some buttons when it turns on but still nothing.

I held the power button a few times aswel, and 1 out of about 20 times in booted, and it all seemed fine, restarted it and the same again now I can't get any life.

I plugged an external monitor in and that was behaving exactly the same as the built in LCD

any ideas where to go next?

thanks

d_brennen · 23 Jun 2011 at 13:20

Nvidia chipset/gpu? Probably borked. Needs a motherboard or reflow I reckon, wild stab in the dark

dtokez · 23 Jun 2011 at 13:34

cant recall and I'm not with it at the moment but I think its a AMD / Nvidia set up mate
damn that sounds fatal lol

d_brennen · 23 Jun 2011 at 13:38

Reflows can be as cheap as £30 from a local repair shop (though I've seen £100+ :eek:

), but it isn't a 100% fix. It may last a week, month or the useful life of the machine. If you get it done make sure they put a copper shim on the offending chip

dtokez · 23 Jun 2011 at 23:35

will have a look around mate, I've got a reflow station at work but Id be a bit dubious to use it on the laptop mobo in case I did it more harm

I guess it is probably the gpu though, if it was anything else I would get some screen action would i?

and the fact that it booted once must mean its temperamental so must be a dodgy joint somewhere?

Stormster · 24 Jun 2011 at 00:29

How many sticks of RAM? Try one at a time.

A trick which I've seen work: remove battery/mains, hold power button for a minute, refit battery/mains, and see what it does... I've seen machines which won't turn on, turn on after this trick lol, something to do with getting rid of static build up?

d_brennen · 24 Jun 2011 at 00:29

danrogers said:
will have a look around mate, I've got a reflow station at work but Id be a bit dubious to use it on the laptop mobo in case I did it more harm

Motherboards are actually quite resilient, bar liquid, electrostatic and breaking off components

danrogers said:
I guess it is probably the gpu though, if it was anything else I would get some screen action would i?

Check the RAM and double check. Beg, borrow or steal some DDR2 SODIMMS from your friends! Laptops often don't post with duff RAM

danrogers said:
and the fact that it booted once must mean its temperamental so must be a dodgy joint somewhere?

That's a typical solder ball used in these types of chipset/GPU package. Note the small area of contact. The ball itself isn't a blob of solder, it is usually a polymer sphere with a coating of various metals, including solder. These fail when the solder at the tip of the ball detaches from the PCB pads, often due to heat cycles

dtokez · 25 Jun 2011 at 20:24

thanks stormster i will have a look at the ram, not thought about that. Will also try the power button trick with no power connected.

thanks for that d brennen. Wicked zoomed in photo! I'm never sure what temperature to use on BGA's like this i've got an xbox I'm waiting to have a go at also lol. Any ideas on how to work out temperature and/or time to heat mate?

dtokez · 30 Jun 2011 at 23:03

tried some known good ram, still nothing.

with the ram door off you can see a bios battery, and the nvidia chipset, i tried some pressure on the gpu but still the same.

bios battery would not cause it would it?

Solus · 15 Sep 2011 at 02:53

Not being funny here, but stick a hair dryer through the ram compartment for a while (I don't do this by the way) but it should at least heat the chip up temporarily to let you know whether a reflow would fix it. Make sure you power it up while it's still warm.

DV6000's are notorious for these GPU issues, liquid flux, removal of the EPOXY, cleaning of solder balls with alcohol is all needed for a reliable reflow along with a copper shim to go between the gpu and heatsink.

mejobloggs · 15 Sep 2011 at 04:24

Yepp DV6000 have terrible GPU issues

I fixed mine for a month or two by turning on a GPU stress test and covering it with a blanket. After a while it gets so hot it shuts down

Leave it for half an hour or so then try turning it on. A lot of people said this works, and it worked for me

Just make sure blanket doesn't catch fire

Apparently the DV6000 has solder with less something in, which causes it to crack easy. Overheating it melts it back together

I've had mine professionally repaired 3 times before that, keeps happening. Given up

beermonster · 15 Sep 2011 at 18:33

If you are the original purchaser and have proof of purchase or they can find your details on there systems then you might be able to get a credit, our company is offering credits for Nvidia issues under the Sale of Goods Act.