Laptop Crashes

ICanFlyHonest · 5 Oct 2011 at 10:35

Hi there,

I was wondering if someone could help me with a problem I've been having with my HP Pavillion dv6500. I am aware that there have been product recalls for a range of HP laptops, but unfortunately not my model. It's a reasonably old laptop now, but I've taken good care of it. However, recently it's just been crashing. This happened twice after a reasonable length of use. Now when I try to turn it on, I get to the boot screen with all the F1 etc. options and it just switches off. I can't get into the bios to see what's wrong before it stops, unfortunately.

In terms of investigating what's wrong, I've tried it with AC power only (no battery), and battery power only (no AC). I've also taken the hard drive out and tested that in a different computer; there's no problem there. I've reseated the RAM and also removed the optical drive. All these did nothing for the boot. The cpu fan looks to be working fine. I would be inclined to think it was a cpu overheating problem but all the cooling seems to be working.

My guess is that it's a problem with the motherboard or an incorrectly seated cpu. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on what it might be and how to fix it.

Thank you!

Emma

Scrutinize · 5 Oct 2011 at 10:47

Do you get any beeps on boot? Which OS are you running (Vista I assume)?

Could be any number of things, has this model got a dedicated graphics card like the Nvidia 8400GS? I assume this is the Core 2 Duo 2007 era machine?

It may be worth trying another stick of memory, as these are so cheap at the moment, it could be the most cost effective starting point if you don't have some spare around it is only about £8-10 for a 2gb stick.

Worse case is it is a motherboard or GPU failure. Have you inspected the motherboard for any visible damage like burnt out capacitors? I seem to recall heat and the Nvidia GPU failure was a killer of laptops from this era?

ICanFlyHonest · 5 Oct 2011 at 10:59

Heya. Thanks for your reply. There aren't any beeps on boot. The OS is indeed Vista and the processor is an AMD Turion. It looks as if the DV6552ea edition had the gf7150m integrated graphics.

Yes I've been reading that heat and the GPUs were a problem for laptops of this age. I'll have a closer look at the motherboard this afternoon and see if I can find any visible heat damage to the it. If not, I'll buy some new RAM and take it from there.

Thanks again

Emma

Scrutinize · 5 Oct 2011 at 11:44

It is hard to guess but it may be a failure of the integrated graphics card / motherboard then.

Alternatively the laptop may not be powering properly or charging but this again lends itself to motherboard failure.

It is always worth trying the memory, especially as you can re-sell it if it doesn't solve anything so at worst it costs you a couple of quid. Just make sure you get branded like the basic crucial or kingston value as these shouldn't cause a problem.

Otherwise, you get to the stage where is it worth trying to repair it, sourcing the parts and paying out £100-£200+

£400 would get you a good replacement laptop

ICanFlyHonest · 5 Oct 2011 at 11:50

Yeh. It's getting on a bit anyways, and with the amount of use it gets, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a failure of the motherboard. If I have to get a new one, it's not the end of the world but it'd be nice to try and fix it if I can.

Thanks for the help!

Django x2 · 5 Oct 2011 at 12:55

This model laptop is plagued with GPU issues. Normally a reflux of the solder around the chip using some suitable layers of alu foil to dissipate the heat from a flow gun solves it.

Unfortuanately, I'm not sure this is your issue. If it was GPU related, you wouldn't see a BIOS or POST screen and you'd get 3 rapid beeps (IIRC). The mobos are cheap enough, around £45 on the bay, full instructions for dismantling are available on HPs site and should take someone semi confident around 30 minutes to swap over.

You could try your memory in someone elses laptop (from a similar age), just one stick to see if you get boot and POST.

Just one thing worth trying. Remove the heatsink (this covers the CPU and GPU on that model) and check the correct thermal pads are in place.

Thermal paste on the Turions goes off very quickly. May at least be worth putting some new thermal paste on the CPU (and GPU) to rule out heat issues.