Laptop won't POST? Try "Laptop Tanning"!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Like many of us, my laptop wouldn't POST and I tried EVERYTHING. Nothing helped. Here's what I did:

1. Took my dead laptop and removed HDD
2. Put my laptop in sunshine for 1 hour (without HDD)
3. After 1 hour in blazing sun, I pressed power button and it TURNED ON!

So, I present you my revolutionary technique "Laptop Tanning". Inspired by "Graphics Card Cooking" technique. Same mechanics link

UPDATE: Knock on the wood but it's working. After a month of not POST'ing. So it's legit, it works, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!

 

So your laptop works if its overheating? what the hell

 

try the oven baking method... cook ur GPU and try again.. should work for a few months without problems unlike ur method.

 

Isn't it impossible with laptop? Can't take out GPU card. And what if problem is in motherboard? I can't take out motherboard off my laptop, that's wayyyy too much work. Just let it tan

 

Haha. You miss-read my post. It's the Laptop that should sit in the sun, not HDD. I removed HDD before putting my lappy outside for an hour. HDD should not be exposed to blazing sun.

And it did work. After being heated up my laptop came back to life. Telling you, it's the same logic as in "Graphics Card Cooking" (see link above)

 

Wait. Is this a joke or not? I really thought it was, but now you sound like you are serious.

Baking your motherboard or whatever can work by reflowing the solder, which may fix a malfunction due to a fracture in a soldered connection. Letting your laptop sit in the sun is not going to work the same way because it isn't getting even close to hot enough to reflow the solder.

 

I definitely want to know if this is a joke or serious. I have a laptop that wont power on, but I don't want to fall for some kind of joke.

 

the below method of baking ur motherboard will work.. try that.. IMO , this method's plain stupid.. unless of course u have a metal body so heat can be conducted by ur body to motherboard and parts ..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-kind-guide-how-bake-your-gpu-fun-profit.html

 

Damit poeple, I am not joking. I swear. Right now I'm using laptop that was dead (wouldn't POST) for 3 months. When pressing power button it would turn on for 1 second and immediately turn off. 1 hour in blazing sun and it turned on.

I do understand that it's not not the same as "motherboard cooking" technique, and I do understand that it's highly situational. It is obvious that my laptop got some loose contact that re-connects from heat exposure.

In any case, what do you have to lose? Just 1 hour of direct sun is nothing. I laid my laptop bottom-up and it was pretty hot when I took it back in.

I was SO excited that my idea worked so I decided to share. I even invented a name for it damit!

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For the record, things I tried before "laptop tanning":
1. replacing ram/HDD
2. cleaning fan
3. reset hole on the back
4. pressing & holding power button for 45 seconds
5. all possible combinations of 3 and 4

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To Sean473: I'm scared to disassemble my lappy, although if it starts not POSTing again I wouldn't have much choice. And will most likely "cook" motherboard, yes. TY for guide.

 

You probably banged it when laying it on the ground, odds are laying the laptop upside down with the sun out wont do much...

 

I understand your skepticism, and it has some merit. Fact is, my laptop works

 

But since there is no logical reason for the sun to have anything to do with it, he is just trying to come up with any random reason why your laptop started working again. I would have to say that I have had plenty of 'dead' hardware come back to 'life' without my being able to explain it whatsoever. Correlation does not prove causation.

 

Why would I want to wreck and fade my beautiful Fusion Finish?

You would probably get better results with taking the motherboard and internals out and sitting them in the sun, rather than the whole thing. That's to say if it even works at all, which I believe not.

 

actually i doubt that, when i read the first post here it even occurred to me that direct sunlight, for however long, will probably not melt solder. however, encased in black plastic i wouldnt be so surprised.

isnt direct sunlight and heat generally pretty bad for lcds though? i had one fail where i think thats what happened. i dont know what else it could have been

 

Well, it's possible that, say, thermal expansion and contraction caused a connection to come back into place. However, I'd say this is a highly unlikely event, and probably no more worth trying than, say, punching your laptop.

 

Hot and cold cycles dislodge components with sockets. You also may have heated it enough to bridge a broken solder joint. Which may have heated up through use enough to hold solid... For now. You also may have bumped it.
Also, it may have just needed to sit for a while. All but the last are temporary fixes. A bios clear can sometimes fix boot issues like this (fairly common with Sony).



By the way, baking the GPU, is bad... just bad. It's a last resort method to get a little more life out of it. You are baking everything on the board when you do this not to mention in a very inaccurate way. Does it work? Yes, but for how long and how much more damage are you doing? There are people out there who can fix it permanently.

 

Yeah, you're right about LCD's and heat. If they are subjected to heat, they generally seem to get very washed out, or develop an unusual tint to it.

 

I would be. The plastic will warp and melt way below temperatures able to liquify the solder.

 

Ok some of replies made me laugh, good stuff guys :]

But look at the scoreboard - scoreboard says my laptop works. Results count. I don't care if it was a miracle or Jesus himself descended and fixed my laptop. It works now and I'm off to play SCII and EVE

 

Yeah your laptop works, but we aren't sure why. We can also cross "laptop tanning" off the list of probable causes.

 

Laptop Tanning™© - patent pending. I can't give up on my single PC invention! I refuse to cross it out.