Laptop sometime doesn't boot...

satindemon4u · Oct 27, 2014

Hey guys. I have a Sony laptop e-series (don't have the exact model right now) that sometimes when you turn it on will only show a black screen. You can hear the hard drive spin up but no picture. The hard drive light doesn't flash either. This happens randomly. Yesterday it took me 30 minutes of turning it off and back on to finally boot. Today over an hour. Any ideas what the cause is? Have checked power settings. Could it be the battery? Hard drive? Ram?

Updated: Took both sticks of ram out, no change. No beeps even. Tried swapping in some RAM of my own that I know for sure works with still no luck.

Not sure if it matters but the cord on the charger is slightly damaged. Could that have possibly shorted out some way and damaged the charging port, therefore damaging the board?

UPDATE: Finally opened the laptop up and turned it on while open so I could observe the video card fan. It doesn't mean. Not a single bit. Will replacing the fan fix my issue, or no? Could it not even be kicking on because the video card itself is toast?

micropage7 · Oct 27, 2014

could be from hdd, or os
have you checked your hdd
is that spinning smoothly?
and what is your os

eidairaman1 · Oct 27, 2014

Check monitor cable inside, hook up to external see if you can reproduce the issue there

satindemon4u · Oct 27, 2014

I plan to do a test on the HDD to see if that's the issue. I will try to hook up to an external as well.

satindemon4u · Oct 27, 2014

Did an HDD test through an ultimate boot CD. Giving me the 0007 error of read element failure. Would this for sure explain my issue?

Jetster · Oct 27, 2014

Most likely its the board. Test the obvious stuff but the symptom is that of a serous issue if its not a lose connection on the board

satindemon4u · Oct 28, 2014

Jetster said:
Most likely its the board. Test the obvious stuff but the symptom is that of a serous issue if its not a lose connection on the board

Hard drive came up with read element failure, could that be it?

Jetster · Oct 28, 2014

Pull the drive and see if you can get to the bios

satindemon4u · Oct 28, 2014

I can get there with the drive in. With it out I just get the "no operating system found" screen. I haven't tried to get there with the drive out.

Jetster · Oct 28, 2014

F2 or Del should get you to the BIOS with or without the drive
Tap it sooner

satindemon4u · Oct 28, 2014

Will do when I can. By the way, why am I trying to get in there?...

Jetster · Oct 28, 2014

To eliminate ether the hard drive or something else causing the problem

If you can consistently boot to the BIOS without the drive (which you should be able to) then the problem is most likely the drive. If not then its more serous.

satindemon4u · Oct 28, 2014

Ahhhhh, good point. My other reason I thought it was the hard drive was because I could get the "no os installed" screen just fine when the drive wasn't in. Leading me to think that it had no issue detecting the lack of a drive but did have an issue sometimes trying to read it.

satindemon4u · Nov 3, 2014

Alright. After taking the drive completely out, I still get a blank black screen. Only light on is the light on the power button. I can't get to BIOS either. Suggestions?

eidairaman1 · Nov 3, 2014

Fn key and a monitor icon on a key, try that command if you can find them.

satindemon4u · Nov 4, 2014

Have those keys, but pushing them does nothing. Tried plugging into my monitor with no change. Still a blank black screen. Eventually just says "no connection detected"

Updated: Took both sticks of ram out, no change. No beeps even. Tried swapping in some RAM of my own that I know for sure works with still no luck.

Not sure if it matters but the cord on the charger is slightly damaged. Could that have possibly shorted out some way and damaged the charging port, therefore damaging the board?

eidairaman1 · Nov 4, 2014

Could of. Its possible the gpu kicked the bucket

satindemon4u · Nov 4, 2014

Ouch. So best bet would be to just save the hard drive and move on?

eidairaman1 · Nov 4, 2014

Probably unless if you can take it to a shop and find out if something went bang

satindemon4u · Nov 4, 2014

Gotcha. Well I am attempting to repair it for a guy. The weird thing about it is, the first time I got it from him it did this. I turned it off and back on and it booted fine. Then when he got it back it took him over an hour of turning it off and back on to get it to successfully boot. After he got it booted I told him to just keep it on. Which he did. Well, the battery died after I got it back today and since then (the past 2 hours) I haven't been able to boot it at all.

eidairaman1 · Nov 4, 2014

Power supply, gpu or motherboard

suraswami · Nov 4, 2014

I had similar problem with one of my laptops and thought the laptop is totally dead. Then dissected it to find the hdd thin ribbon cable was dying, if I press it hard the machine will recognize the hdd, but it will show as a 8GB drive as against a 60GB. So bought a new cable from Amazon, installed and machine booted up right away, been working for over a month with no issues.

So in ur case may be check that too.

satindemon4u · Nov 4, 2014

suraswami said:
I had similar problem with one of my laptops and thought the laptop is totally dead. Then dissected it to find the hdd thin ribbon cable was dying, if I press it hard the machine will recognize the hdd, but it will show as a 8GB drive as against a 60GB. So bought a new cable from Amazon, installed and machine booted up right away, been working for over a month with no issues.

So in ur case may be check that too.

Even if that was the case, if I totally removed the hard drive couldn't I have at least gotten a "No operating system found" error?

suraswami · Nov 4, 2014

satindemon4u said:
Even if that was the case, if I totally removed the hard drive couldn't I have at least gotten a "No operating system found" error?

I tried that too, only when I removed the cable the machine booted. May be mine was different, try out just to rule out the bad cable.

satindemon4u · Nov 4, 2014

I'll give it a go...

System Name	Desktop
Processor	Intel Core i5 6600k
Motherboard	Asus Z170-E
Cooling	Cooler Master 212 Evo
Memory	16 GB Ballistix DDR4 2400
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060
Storage	120GB OCZ Vector SSD & 1TB Western Digital Black
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	630w Raidmax Hybrid 2 RX-630SS
Mouse	Logitech G402
Keyboard	Rosewill Mechanical
Software	Windows 10

System Name	micropage7
Processor	Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard	Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling	Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory	Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage	V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s)	Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case	Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply	Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse	Logitech G502
Keyboard	Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software	Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores	Classified

System Name	PCGOD
Processor	AMD FX 8350@ 5.0GHz
Motherboard	Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2 2901 Bios
Cooling	Scythe Ashura, 2×BitFenix 230mm Spectre Pro LED (Blue,Green), 2x BitFenix 140mm Spectre Pro LED
Memory	16 GB Gskill Ripjaws X 2133 (2400 OC, 10-10-12-20-20, 1T, 1.65V)
Video Card(s)	AMD Radeon 290 Sapphire Vapor-X
Storage	Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, WD Velociraptor 1TB
Display(s)	NEC Multisync LCD 1700V (Display Port Adapter)
Case	AeroCool Xpredator Evil Blue Edition
Audio Device(s)	Creative Labs Sound Blaster ZxR
Power Supply	Seasonic 1250 XM2 Series (XP3)
Mouse	Roccat Kone XTD
Keyboard	Roccat Ryos MK Pro
Software	Windows 7 Pro 64

System Name	Desktop
Processor	Intel Core i5 6600k
Motherboard	Asus Z170-E
Cooling	Cooler Master 212 Evo
Memory	16 GB Ballistix DDR4 2400
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060
Storage	120GB OCZ Vector SSD & 1TB Western Digital Black
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	630w Raidmax Hybrid 2 RX-630SS
Mouse	Logitech G402
Keyboard	Rosewill Mechanical
Software	Windows 10

System Name	Desktop
Processor	Intel Core i5 6600k
Motherboard	Asus Z170-E
Cooling	Cooler Master 212 Evo
Memory	16 GB Ballistix DDR4 2400
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060
Storage	120GB OCZ Vector SSD & 1TB Western Digital Black
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	630w Raidmax Hybrid 2 RX-630SS
Mouse	Logitech G402
Keyboard	Rosewill Mechanical
Software	Windows 10

Laptop sometime doesn't boot...

satindemon4u

micropage7

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

satindemon4u

satindemon4u

Jetster

satindemon4u

Jetster

satindemon4u

Jetster

satindemon4u

Jetster

satindemon4u

satindemon4u

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

satindemon4u

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

satindemon4u

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

satindemon4u

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

suraswami

satindemon4u

suraswami

satindemon4u

System Name	Juliette // HTPC
Processor	Intel i7 9700K // AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
Motherboard	ASUS Prime Z390X-A // ASRock B550 ITX-AC
Cooling	Noctua NH-U12 Black // Stock
Memory	Corsair DDR4 3600 32gb //G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3600
Video Card(s)	ASUS RTX4070 OC// GTX 1650
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 1Tb, Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB // Samsung 1Tb SSD
Display(s)	ASUS VP348QGL 34" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 // 55" LG 4K SK8000 Series
Case	Seasonic SYNCRO Q7// Silverstone Granada GD05
Audio Device(s)	Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 // HDMI to Samsung HW-R650 sound bar
Power Supply	Seasonic SYNCRO 750 W // CORSAIR Vengeance 650M
Mouse	Cooler Master MM710 53G
Keyboard	Logitech 920-009300 G512 SE
Software	Windows 10 Pro // Windows 10 Pro

System Name	---
Processor	FX 8350 @ 4.00 Ghz with 1.28v
Motherboard	Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 v4.0, Hacked Bios F4.x
Cooling	Silenx 4 pipe Tower cooler + 2 x Cougar 120mm fan, 3 x 120mm, 1 x 200 mm Red LED fan
Memory	Kingston HyperX DDR3 1866 16GB + Patriot Memory DDR3 1866 16GB
Video Card(s)	Asus R9 290 OC @ GPU - 1050, MEM - 1300
Storage	Inland 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD for OS, WDC Black - 2TB + 1TB Storage, Inland 480GB SSD - Games
Display(s)	3 x 1080P LCDs - Acer 25" + Acer 23" + HP 23"
Case	AeroCool XPredator X3
Audio Device(s)	Built-in Realtek
Power Supply	Corsair HX1000 Modular
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64 bit