DV9500t pronounced dead

Hi, I have had my dv9500 for a year now and have had intermittent lockup with the laptop. I contacted hp and they had me go through a vast array of self-diagnosis.

I originally started emailing them in September, now my laptop is completely dead. When I press the power button the blue lights go on but that's all, I hear a fan running but the hard drive doesn't do anything and I can't access the bios at all. Any suggestions would be helpful.

I tried to bring it to an authorized hp repair shop but they wanted to charge me and my funds are very limited.

 

Something like that happened to me a few weeks ago, I turned off my laptop and when pressed the button to turn it on it, all blue lights went on, the fan was working, but nothing on the screen. So this is what I did:

1) Took out the battery (with the lapto turned off and not connecte to AC)
2) Took out the RAM (I have two DIMM 1GB each).
3) Replace the RAM
4) Replace the battery.

And now everything is ok. What happened? I don't know exactly. All I was doing before it happened was working on a WEB page I'm building and was running on battery. Battery was 40% percent when I stopped and turned it off. When I tried to turn it on again after a few hours, the computer didn't respond.

Hope this help you too!!!

 

Ok, I just tried what you suggested and the laptop booted up. Very strange, I wonder what caused this to happen?

 

He's dead, Jim

 

I tried to start my laptop just now and it won't boot up again. I tried following the steps I did last night that got it started ( removing battery and memory and reseating both) and this time it a no go.

Could this be the motherboard?

 

Does it work on external power with the battery removed?

 

No it does the same thing with the battery removed

 

John D, let me ask you this: When did it happen to you the first time and what were you doing? Also, You say you've been experiencing problems since you own it, share with us a detailed history of your system problems that relate to the situation you are experiencing now, so we can have more informations to help you out.

 

One of the DIMMs may have gone bad. Try with just one of the DIMMs, then try again with the other one.

 

OK here’s the entire story

Shortly after I received the laptop in October 2006 (about 2 months) it would lock up when I played games like COD, but I figured that it was maybe just a heat issue. So I bought a chill pad and it seemed to help. I stopped gaming shortly thereafter and I only noticed the problem intermittently.

In September of this year it started giving me difficulty booting up and locked up more often (at least once per 30 to 45 minutes). I contacted an hp technician online and they had me perform a series of diagnostics ranging from reseating the memory, hard drive, and the battery. I also released what they called flea power by removing the battery and ac adapter, then holding down the power button for 30 seconds. None of this helped.

I installed speed fan to check the heat and the technician told me the temps were normal. I emailed support and they told me it was a software problem. They suggested I do a destructive recovery and start from scratch. This didn’t help.

A friend gave me a Linux disk (Ubuntu) and the system locked up while running the live disk.

I emailed hp and they suggested running the system in the bios and let them know if it locked up. It did and I let them know. By now it is October and the warranty was about to expire. I told them I would like this resolved before the warranty expired. They had me try a few more diagnostics and when I was unable to run any of them to completion because the laptop would lock up during any of the test. (Memtest and. Drive fitness test) They suggested I bring it to an authorized repair center that wanted to charge me 65 dollars to look at it.

I couldn’t see spending that on someone to tell me the laptops broken so a friend of mine said maybe it’s the memory. Since that is relatively cheap I purchased new memory from crucial for 45 dollars.

The system ran the same for about 2 weeks locking intermittently when about 2 days ago it locked up and wouldn’t start until I tried the suggestion mentioned above (removing memory and battery and reseating them.

Now it won’t start at all, I here a fan start and stop, the hd light flickers for a second sometimes when I try to boot it, other times it doesn’t come on at all. The screen remains black no splash screen at all or blinking cursor. The blue power lights come on. I tried to start it with and without the battery pack. Nothing.

Out of frustration this morning I downloaded a manual from hp from my wife computer and took apart (completely) the laptop. (Very confusing I must say, lots of little pieces) It is currently in many pieces on my desk

I work in maintenance repairing machinery so I am a little handy with tools but as for computers and laptops I am at a loss.

Funds are low or I would have brought this into a shop

Help please, I appreciate any advice.

 

If you noticed the only few times you've noticed better results is the both times you touched the memories (RAM I mean). So you should listen to jimbob and try using only one DIMM of you memory, preferably the one of those that came with your laptop (keep the one you bought for later on).

So try to reassemble your notebook and give a try to the memory stuff, let's see what happens... good luck and don't forget to reply back!!

 

Well that wasn't as easy as I thought it would be but the laptop is back together. I am afraid I have a few screws leftover. Definitely not one of my better ideas.

I replaced one stick of memory and the system booted fine. I rebooted the system and ran the drive fitness test. It completed the test and found no problems.

A friend of mine gave me a disk called the Ultimate boot disk, which had the Hitachi DFT on it. When I ran the test it detected my drive as a Fujitsu. When it finished that test, I am currently running the Fujitsu diagnostics program it is currently 40 percent done. I will continue to post what is happening, as it happens.

Thank you emedici, jimbob83, AKAJohnDoe for the input I was really feeling at a loss for what to do and you have made me feel like I wasn’t in this alone.

Thanks again

 

That's great news John D. When you finish your HD tests, try using your laptop normally with just one DIMM, at least for a week or so. Then let us know what results you had. There a few things I've got in my mind that you could do, but that will depend on the results you get after all this.

 

System is running smooth right now. Thanks emedici, I will keep this updated.

 

Good stuff! Hopefully your PC problems are behind you now.

To be thorough, I would try the other DIMM and see if the problems return. If the bad DIMM is the aftermarket one you bought, you should check to see if it is still under warranty.

 

Great news John D. I second jimbob83, Do as he says and let's finally see if the problem is closed.