P25-S670 Dead

Hello all. I've had a P25-S670 laptop for about four years. All of a sudden it started to act sluggish and then quits. The screen went blank and the power-on button just lights up, and that's it. Moreover, the fan would run for a few minutes and then quits, comes mack on then quits again etc etc. I first took it over to CompUSA, and they told me that after doing a diagnostic test, they concluded that the motherboard was bad. Cost to replace the MB was $925.00. Since that was a bit steep at the time I searched around the internet and found a company that claimed they could fix virtually any laptop motherboard. I sent the laptop to the company and they told me that the video card went bad and basically destroyed the MB beyond repair. I'm not a computer guru, however, I find it rather strange that a video card could backfire and destroy a motherboard beyond repair. They told me that it was going to cost $715.00 to "replace" the MB. I gave them the go-ahead to do the work. I also told them, before they began working on the laptop, to return my old MB. I finally received the laptop in the mail on February 9th. (2007). The old MB never came with the laptop. Before the day was out, the laptop began to behave sluggish, freezing up etc. By the following afternoon, it quits again, dead. The screen went blank and the fan runs and that was just about all it did. I called the company twice and told them not only what happened but why the old MB was not returned with the laptop. All I got from the person I spoke with were excuses as to why the old MB can't be found. Furthermore, all offers to call me back when the MB was found never materialized. I've been getting the classic run-around. QUESTION. Are there any other issues that could cause the laptop to literally die like that? I've read on this forum where loose connections for the power cord was to blame for the P25 series laptop going on the blink. The connection in the back is solid as the day I bought the laptop. Someone on the forum recommended downpowering completely for a couple of hours and rebooting with just the power cord. I tried that. After rebooting the activity light for the hard drive looked as if the laptop was trying to boot up, however, the light went out after about 90 seconds, then all the lights that remained on was the blue power switch, battery indicator light and two other lights beside it. The strange thing about the laptop's behavior is that it appears to be booting up...screen is still blank, but after about twenty seconds it just quits. It's like at a certain point during the boot sequence, some important step/link is missing. I tried the recovery disk but the floppy drive never budged. The P25 is a very powerful laptop. Replacing it with a comparable laptop/desktop would cost a bundle, hence the reason I'd like to get it fixed. I would really appreciate any inputs from the forum.

Patrick

 

jahman, CompUSA's analysis of the laptop failure were spot on. the P25 has a "defect" with the Geforce 5200/5700 video IC where it will partially disconnect from the motherboard, causing the system to have corrupted video, only boot to safe mode, or in the worst case to not boot up at all

. It is possible to repair this, but it requires expensive equipment to do it correctly (or a heat gun and alot of luck), and the success rate of the repair is VERY low (even if the repair is successful the board will usually fail within a few months)

from what it sounds like the company that gave you the new motherboard, actually gave you a refurbished one and it has the same exact problem as your origional motherboard.

You can purchase a 17" laptop that will be considerably faster, with more memory, and a good DVDRW drive for around $1200. If you cant get the repair company to fix your laptop again, I would suggest going this route.

 

If you paid with a credit card company I would call them since their repair was faulty. Laptop are so cheap nowadays it is almost not worth it to fix them.