2 Laptops Not POSTING

this is VERY strange.

i time track meets along with one of my coaches..
my coach has 2 laptops that he uses to time with.

both have XP SP2 on them.

last night he ran a windows security update, an IBM A31, he left it to do the update, came back and the computer had a blank screen. he tried to restart it but no matter what, blank screen, doesnt even POST.

so today we had to run the meet with one laptop, an IBM R51.
it ran perfect for the whole meet. there was a rainstorm but we were under a tent, a little bit of water got onto the keyboard but just a little. it has had worse before.

so when my coach got home after the meet, he goes to turn his R51 on and was going to upload the meet results to his website, but as he was using Firefox, the computer all of a sudden BSODed. and now it also does not POST.

occasionally he would get 4 medium/long beeps coming from the R51. i had him take out the CMOS battery with no success.

He has not done anything with the A31 yet.
i was realling hoping that resetting the CMOS battery on the R51 would work but it didnt..

what else can we possibly do?
we need both of these laptops for timing meets and without them we're pretty much screwed, especially my coach.

it is just so odd that both of them are experiencing the same type of hardware problems in the same day.

both of the laptops were hooked up to the same network last night, my coach's home network. i guess there could be some sort of a hardware virus but what! and how would i go about fixing it...

 

Let's forget about the water damaged one for a second, as I really suspect that could be part of the problem. Something might have been damaged by water, the beeps you described sound closest to IBM's listed bad keyboard code.

When you say it doesn't post, you know that means NOTHING comes on screen, right? No IBM BIOS logo, nothing? I would try reseating the CMOS battery on the A31, as well as the memory. Also, try an external monitor, if the LCD is bad it might be the problem.

 

i have not tried replacing it yet, the battery for the R51 is really strange, its not the normal one.
for the A31 when i started is up, the lights for the power,hdd,etc all went on, then a second later only the power light was still on.
so there is no hdd activity meaning its not booting up windows.

on tuesday i will have both laptops in hand to work on.

 

When booting up, make sure the battery pack isnt in and only running on AC power

 

for the R51 he tried that.
we havnt even tought the A31 yet.

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-46018

Lenovo's site doesn't have any troubleshooting info for 4 beeps...?

When your coach was using the R51 outside in the storm, was it humid outside? Just casting around for possibilities here...

The A31's failure can only be a hardware failure, as Windows Update cannot touch the BIOS; in fact, Windows can't either. So the only explanation is that your motherboard has failed.

 

ya i was wondering about the humidity as well, right now the humidity here is 76%, it was even worse earlier on, especially after it rained. but as i said the R51 worked perfectly the whole meet and was next used inside his house.

for the A31, the computer either BSODed while he was away or restarted after the update and never came on again.. i too know that windows should not be able to stop the comp from POSTINT but stranger things have happened..

hopefully a CMOS reset on that will work.

 

A plausible explanation is that the humid air inside the laptop could have condensed when he took it into the house because of the temperature change. I doubt whether laptop electronics can operate properly at >76%, but the environmental operating specs should be on the manufacturer's website.

 

ya that could be possible, hopefully letting it dry out for a couple of days will help, i guess thats all i can now for the R51

 

the R51 is working now..

 

and the A31 is working now.
i guess it was due to the insane condensation these past few days.

 

glad to hear it...

atleast no perment damage seems to have been done...

 

ya very strange, but hey, they both work, and we are all happy now
gotta love computers.