Ever had your laptop die

[Sxotty]

So I have a hp laptop and I am working feverishly on a project with my group and suddenly the thing turns off while using it.

Hmm seems likely it overheated or something. So I feel it and it doesn't seem particularly hot, I unplug it, and try to turn it on just using battery nothing happens. Check a different power adapter, nothing happens.

Anyway it seems dead as a doornail and it is strange, of course it is out of warranty Anyway I tried taking it apart to see if the internal power circuitry was fried, but everything looks ship shape.

I took the battery out of course, and even managed to take the internal battery ouit on Mobo hoping it would reset the CMOS like a normal computer, no luck.
Anyway I don't think I will be buying another HP personally.

Luckily I have all my work on a thumbdrive, and on my regular computer as well so nothing vital was lost, but it was still quite the frustrating event since I was going to rely on my laptop a great deal this summer. Anyway now it is off to ebay to try and find a broken one to mix and match.

If anyone has any other ideas let me know.

 

[_xxx_]

I went through three laptops at work last year. Both times it died, it was the mobo. Oh and: keep away from HP Compaq NC6000.

 

[Sobek]

Actually...yes.

About a month ago I finally got one of my (free) laptops working. It was nothing special, p3-1.1ghz, 256mb ram, 20gb hdd, dvd...It took me ages though to get a working PSU for it and a replacement battery (old one wouldn't hold any charge).

For no reason it just started freezing...I'd only JUST got this thing setup perfectly for use at my mums work, and it had to do it. Then after a while it just refused to turn on. So I ended up taking it apart and discovered that one of the small holes on the cpu socket where the pin goes into had melted, rendering it totally, utterly, irreparably useless.

I put a screwdriver through it and never looked at it again, it's still here somewhere. I ended up just taking out the hdd, cpu, ram and such and trying to find the exact same laptop on ebay or somesuch, but that proved useless because I swear, the damn thing doesn't exist anywhere.

Sigh

 

[_xxx_]

Oh yeah, the NC6000 eats HDD's too. The part has a very poor cooling.

 

[JBark]

Yep, the mobo is dying on my wife's Inspiron 2650. Just random hard freezes. I've found 3 things that cause it:
1) ACPI/APM enabled
2) Lots of USB traffic
3) Lots of network traffic on the onboard network card.

So I've got windows running with ACPI disabled, APM disabled, using a PCMCIA network card (no idea why that doesn't crash), and only thing USB is a mouse. If I plug in a USB keyboard, it usually crashes every couple days. With the config I've got now, it hasn't crashed in a week.

I can tell I'm not the only one with a problem like this, because the Inspiron 2650 mobos sell like crazy on ebay. I'm always on the lookout for one with a broken screen.

 

[Mize]

The reason I went with Fujitsus for all my company's laptops last round (bought 6 of them) was that they had the lowest warranty claim rates per capita. HP/Compaq was #1 followed by Dell. Actually had airport security catapult my P Series Lifebook off the x-ray belt and onto the flow with no damage other than a lost VGA port cover. Unfortunately they don't have any models with decent gfx cards.

 

[Sxotty]

Well my laptop was tough enough it seemed, for it was beaten around a lot before it died.

One strange thing that is probably related which I forgot.

For the past two months when I would shut it down it would randomly restart 10% of the time. I just ignored it, but I wonder if something was FUBARED in the power circuitry the entire time. Oh well whatever.

 

[satein]

I have NC6000 too, but it's working great Mine is P-M 1.8 model with SXGA and now P-M 2.1 was repleaced it. But one thing I notice is that the battery is not that good comparison to the N620c I owned before.

Anyway, what is your laptop model? Sound as if your power circuit fail and that mean a whole motherboard need change .

PS. I just notice new animation smillies, cool.

 

[Sxotty]

It is an hp ze2000 and I already bought a replacement one, so hopefully it will get here soon. I bought a broken screen one on ebay, I paid too much, but I want ti quickly. I am now debating whether to sell mine or keep it for spare parts.

 

[Sxotty]

Just to let you know the borken one came in and seemed brandnew, I think it was a display unit or something. (Unless some asshat stole it )

Anyway I got everything swapped out and reinstalled windows it runs like a champ again