Laptop : Startup failure = look for?

[FatRakoon]

I got this Samsung R60

I have had it for years and its been a rock solid little machine for me, however, some time ago, it started this issue where it sometimes failed to start up.

It was fine cold and you could use it flawlessly for as long as you wanted, but if you restarted her up, she would sometimes not bother.

What would happen, is that the CPU fan would spin up an it would sit there doing nothing but spin the fan.

Now, on occasion, a couple of the lights would flash and it would boot up... Again, if it booted up, it would run flawlessly.

So, could it be a temp issue? Well, I dont think so... It would get warm to the touch yes, but not anything unexpected for a laptop, and I ran it with SpeedFan and taht showed me that ven under load, it never hit 50c

Ok so it did this for quite some time and its not my main laptop and so I was fine with it, but a few weeks ago, I dug her out to have a play about and she failed to start up... She did the old fan on, but nothing else thing, and just sat there?

I am no good with laptops, but I thought sod it, I have had her in bits before and so I went through her with a fine tooth comb looking for anything that was visibly obvious, but nothing?

All teh contacts look to be perfect, all the little connections etc all look right. I took the CPU out and re-seated it, putting new compound on just to be happy that I did everything I could and I put her all back together with the greatest of care and it made ZERO difference... She just sits there doing nothing but my head in.

Does anyone have any ideas to throw at me to see if I can bring her back to life?

I know she is no speed freak, but she is a great little laptop and is perhaps my favourite because she loves linux and has never let me down or crashed ( contradict yourself much Fatty? )

 

[wildman_33]

Check to see if the ram is seated properly, if one of the sticks is loose it would fail to boot. You could also try removing one of the sticks and seeing if the problem goes away. Have you ever tried a fresh installation of windows? (just realised you run linux so i'm guessing you have tried reinstalling that) It might just be a driver problem. I doubt its a cpu problem anyway as temperature problems would cause it to cut out rather than freeze.

 

[FatRakoon]

Erm, ok.

RAM.
Nope, it does it not matter what RAM I use. I have of course tried this route

Fresh install or the O/S and indeed any driver issues.
Impossible - #it does not even start up. Like I said, when it did, it ram flawlessly.

CPU.
Again, I never said anything about it freezing. I said it either works or it does not start up. That said, I would try out a CPU but I dont have any compatible with it... That I know of?

 

[wildman_33]

Erm, ok.

RAM.
Nope, it does it not matter what RAM I use. I have of course tried this route

Fresh install or the O/S and indeed any driver issues.
Impossible - #it does not even start up. Like I said, when it did, it ram flawlessly.

CPU.
Again, I never said anything about it freezing. I said it either works or it does not start up. That said, I would try out a CPU but I dont have any compatible with it... That I know of?

Yes but you say the fans come on and it does nothing else therefore it must be freezing during post which is when it performs all its hardware checks. I simply said it cant be overheating as this would cause thermal shut off which would involve it switching off completely or rebooting. If you have tried different ram then maybe that isn't the cause. A different CPU wouldnt cost a lot (they often go for a few £ on ebay and you could even pick up a faster model) but CPUs rarely fail by themselves and i'm guessing you didn't notice any bent pins when you removed it. Something would more likely have failed on the motherboard but a replacement would likely be difficult to source.

Edit: its probably also worth checking for any bios updates on the samsung website

 

[FatRakoon]

Even if there was a BIOS update ( there isnt I checked ) there does not seem to be any way to update the BIOS anyway.

A replacement CPU might be a possible option if one is available on xbay sure... I might keep my eyes out every so often... I might just wait until I find another dead Lappy thats Pentium DC based. I got a couple of Core2 based Lappies that I could swipe the CPU from to test, but there is no g'tee they will work either.

Ah I dont know. I am probably just as well to accept my loss... Its a shame cos the thing has been through hell and back with me... I got it as a wrecked lappy, that had been thrown down the stairs, but it still came on, however the keyboard had missing keys and a shattered screen and I had it in the cupboard when I came across another one by pure luck that was a good case and I decided to just look for the bits over time and eventually after owning it for about 2 years I had replaced the screen, battery, PSU, Keybopard and HD ( yes, it would have been cheaper to just buy any other but its bee na good setup for me in those years it has run, plus, itst he only laptop I have, that has a great feeling keyboard that never moves the cursor all over the screen for no reason.

Anyway, Im waffling.

Thanks for the help.