Question

HP Pavillion dv6000 suddenly stopped working, won't boot, no HDD activity

Asked by: ramblinman

I have a year and a half old HP pavillion dv6000 that suddenly stopped working today. I was using it, started doing something else, and when I came back a little while later, the screen was blank. When I tried rebooting it, it was just a blank screen. The lights all work(kinda). When I start it up, I notice the Hard Drive activity light come on for just an instant, followed by the disk drive clicking, followed by 2 short beeps(the beeps don't occur when the disk drive isn't inserted), followed by the fan coming on briefly, and then nothing. After about 10 or 15 seconds, it attempts to restart itself, and continues to do so until I turn it off.

It behaves this way regardless of it running on battery, running on AC, and running on AC with the battery removed. I have noticed that when running off of AC and the battery inserted, the charging light isn't lit, but when the machine is turned off, and plugged in the light is on..

I've tried removing the memory, swapping the cards, etc., removing the hard drive, removing the opt. drive, and still nothing. Any help would be great,

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Asked On
2008-02-21 at 17:32:46ID23183285
Tags

HP

,

HP pavillion

,

dv6000

Topics

Personal Computers

,

General Laptop

,

PC Laptops

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Answers

 

by: pheidiusPosted on 2008-02-21 at 21:36:41ID: 20954925

hp says that the fact that that light is on means that the problem in not with the power. The two short beeps means looking for option rom. The hard drive clicking suggests that no matter how long it looks it won't find it as the drive or drive board is bad. Try booting it with the install cd or a knopix boot disk. If it boots ok from either, then it is time to replace hard drive.

 

by: nobusPosted on 2008-02-22 at 01:38:14ID: 20955762

you can also test the disk by hooking it to a working pc, and runnin some diags on it, or a scandisk for errors
does it show in the bios?

 

by: SunBowPosted on 2008-02-22 at 04:37:30ID: 20956587

> followed by the fan coming on briefly, and then nothing

overheating? From the above, suspect the motherboard, but not familiar with the beep code I'd try swapping the rest, monitor & card and KB as well. HP has a problem with the circuit itself, but initially that shows itself first more often by rebooting once up.

> started doing something else, and when I came back a little while later, the screen was blank

That describes the mobo issue well enough

Look at the cable, I think I heard something about one of the pins being critical here. Try replacing disk cable and observe the contacts

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 06:38:24ID: 20957643

Pheidus, thanks for your comments, but the HDD is just fine. The clicking isn't coming from the hard drive, it's actually the opt. drive looking for it disk it seems, but thanks for the comment. And I don't have any display, I have absolutely no activity from the laptop except the lights coming on, so BIOS is not an option, but like i said, the HDD is fine, as I bought an enclosure last night, and tested it, everything is intact(and now backed up).

Sunbow, thanks for the comments, It's a laptop, so I don't have a spare display & KB to swap with it, and I think you might be thinking I'm talking about a desktop, if you mean swapping out the video card...I wish I could swap out the video card, I would have upgraded a LONG time ago :) !!!! I was thinking that it was overheating, so I tried disassembling it and blowing it, but not much dust came out, and it isn't getting hot.

Oh, and the beeps seem to be coming from the DVD drive, and not the BIOS, so now help there :(

Thanks for commenting, I'll keep trying to figure it out, before I have to take it to a repair shop, and keep you posted.

 

by: SunBowPosted on 2008-02-22 at 08:10:19ID: 20958676

> the video card,
(that means mobo, like for swapping bios)

> beeps seem to be coming from the DVD drive
Thought you swapped...

Need new one, huh? Too bad, not for HP but other laptops had history of HD lockup with many cures, one fav was to bang the corner of notebook, the drive would loosen and boot. Very popular. Culture hear introduced me to placing it in freezer. Different. Don't know a person who did it but the response in EE was acceptable.

Since we do not suspect S/W, may I suggest you use EE's H/W section TA if you end up needing to ask this again. I did not know dvd beeped, those would typically be from speaker

 

by: nobusPosted on 2008-02-22 at 08:22:45ID: 20958846

did you test it, as suggested?

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 17:46:03ID: 20963193

Nobus, yes, I tested the drive, all is well there.

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 19:36:20ID: 20963491

I'm thinking it may be the onboard graphics? I was reading somewhere that said if the vpu BIOS does not load, the system does not know where to send the video, hence an otherwise functional system becoming inoperable.

Another cause for concern I  have been thinking about it is static electricity discharge; could it be possible i zapped the system? It's cold, dry, and I have a lot of carpet!

If I were to replace the MOBO with the correct replacement unit(assuming the video or other critical component is shot), would the windows HAL recognize it and function properly?

Thanks a lot everyone for trying to help me solve this!

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2008-02-22 at 19:41:37ID: 20963504

Remove the motherboard out of the case, reset bios by remove the coin shape battery for few mins, then install basic components and power up see if it works?

Seems that the motherboard is failed.

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 19:51:25ID: 20963529

I actually just disassembled/reassembled the unit, reseated components, etc. I was looking for the bios batt, but didnt' see the typical coin shape one. The only thing I saw that came close was a small round magnet looking something...but could not unseat it, so I left it be. any ideas?

Thanks

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2008-02-22 at 19:59:47ID: 20963555

Motherboards from Dell, HP, etc. are sometime not standard motherboards that you can buy from retails. If you can put a picture here, that would help a lot :o)

Remove motherboard out of the case, and place on cardboard to test though. If it is still cold while power on then you could rule out (not 100% but close) the motherboard issue.

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 20:05:29ID: 20963575

>>Motherboards from Dell, HP, etc. are sometime not standard motherboards that you can buy from retails. If you can put a picture here, that would help a lot :o)

Sadly, this I know :( , however I know the part number: 431363-001

>>Remove motherboard out of the case, and place on cardboard to test though. If it is still cold while power on then you could rule out (not 100% but close) the motherboard issue.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here...could you please elaborate a little??

Thanks

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2008-02-22 at 20:12:35ID: 20963606

Take the mobo out of the case, you can avoiding possible electrical short from motherboard to chasis, and you can also inspection overall the motherboard for any issue might occur (bad caps, burn mark, etc.).  

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2008-02-22 at 20:18:18ID: 20963630

Oop! sorry. I got wrong since you are talking about laptop, not desktop.

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-22 at 21:23:44ID: 20963773

Yeah, I thought I had posted this problem in 3 different sections, but alas, only the Desktops/PCs/ section have appeared to reply...

Back to another question, regarding replacing the MOBO,  I have potentially lined up a potential replacement. Will the exact replacement( i.e. sys board; graphics module, etc.)allow my HDD and Windows HAL to function as if all components were the same? Id I replace the guts, will the HAL reject the transplant, so to speak??

Thanks...

 

by: pheidiusPosted on 2008-02-22 at 22:35:38ID: 20963905

i guess I was too focused on the beeps as I thought they were bios error beeps. After looking at the history of this unit, video failure rates were high but there were bios beep codes associated with that namely 1 long then two short beeps..

 

by: nobusPosted on 2008-02-22 at 23:55:40ID: 20964096

remove all devices you can : disk, cd drive, extra cards, ram,...
does it boot now to a screen ? if yes --> connect a disk or a cd and try to boot from it
if NO it is one of the connected : ram, cpu, mobo

 

by: ramblinmanPosted on 2008-02-24 at 14:27:13ID: 31433131

Thanks for the help guys

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