Discussion
As some of you have already help me out in another thread about networking you might have known that had big plans for my laptop setup, then out of the blue my laptop dies!
I went out last night and left it on ripping a cd, when I came back my friend saw the screen was black and hit the space bar. Nothing happened so he hit the power button and the screen "windows is resuming" was shown, it then promptly died and I haven't been able to switch it on since.
My first thoughts were that the problem was power related as the lights on the back of the laptop that usually show when it is plugged in, were doing nothing.
When it died it was connected to the mains so the battery should have been fully charged. I swapped the fuse from the laptop plug with the one in my tv plug and the tv worked fine. I didn't think it would be the fuse anyway because the battery should have kicked in. It is a sony vaio pcg-fx702. I haven't had any previous trouble with it and its less than two years old.
I'm am slightly worried that it could have something to do with me installing a D-link USB 2.0 pcmcia card the night before but it was working fine after I installed the card. The second worry was that it has something to do with DVD playing software my friend downloaded for me. The setup file was on a cd and I tried to run the setup from the cd and my laptop crashed and restarted straight away. On restarting there was the "send error report" message box which said something about recovering from large failure. It had worked fine after switching back on after that though. I also would have thought that neither of these two events would prevent me from being able to switch it on in the first place.
I left it over night but it was still dead this morning.
Any suggestion are very welcome.
I went out last night and left it on ripping a cd, when I came back my friend saw the screen was black and hit the space bar. Nothing happened so he hit the power button and the screen "windows is resuming" was shown, it then promptly died and I haven't been able to switch it on since.
My first thoughts were that the problem was power related as the lights on the back of the laptop that usually show when it is plugged in, were doing nothing.
When it died it was connected to the mains so the battery should have been fully charged. I swapped the fuse from the laptop plug with the one in my tv plug and the tv worked fine. I didn't think it would be the fuse anyway because the battery should have kicked in. It is a sony vaio pcg-fx702. I haven't had any previous trouble with it and its less than two years old.
I'm am slightly worried that it could have something to do with me installing a D-link USB 2.0 pcmcia card the night before but it was working fine after I installed the card. The second worry was that it has something to do with DVD playing software my friend downloaded for me. The setup file was on a cd and I tried to run the setup from the cd and my laptop crashed and restarted straight away. On restarting there was the "send error report" message box which said something about recovering from large failure. It had worked fine after switching back on after that though. I also would have thought that neither of these two events would prevent me from being able to switch it on in the first place.
I left it over night but it was still dead this morning.
Any suggestion are very welcome.
That thought crossed my mind but I discounted it without checking. I didn't think the battery would have been drained because its set to switch itself off long before it runs out and especially because it wasn't being used at the time. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a similar model but I'll try and find a suitable transformer.
Good idea, thanks.
Good idea, thanks.
chicane said:
That thought crossed my mind but I discounted it without checking. I didn't think the battery would have been drained because its set to switch itself off long before it runs out and especially because it wasn't being used at the time. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a similar model but I'll try and find a suitable transformer.
Good idea, thanks.
Windows XP is notorious for not switching itself off when it should. My first thoughts are the power supply, but it could also be a dead BIOS which is costly to repair i'm afraid.
chicane said:
Windows XP is notorious for not switching itself off when it should. My first thoughts are the power supply, but it could also be a dead BIOS which is costly to repair i'm afraid.
How costly? If it is a dead BIOS will my documents be recoverable?
Your documents will be fine.
Assuming it is the BIOS, then I think it costs about £300 to get it reset/the chip replaced. It's not the same as the BIOS on a PC which can be flashed easily and for nothing.
Phew! he says, breathing a huge sigh of relief.
No idea what was wrong but its working again. I completely removed the battery and tried switching it on with just ac and it worked ( I'm sure I tried this earlier). My initial thoughts were then that it must be the battery that is faulty but it is now running from the battery.
What odd things computers are.
No idea what was wrong but its working again. I completely removed the battery and tried switching it on with just ac and it worked ( I'm sure I tried this earlier). My initial thoughts were then that it must be the battery that is faulty but it is now running from the battery.
What odd things computers are.
chicane said:
No idea what was wrong but its working again. I completely removed the battery and tried switching it on with just ac and it worked
That's what i was about to suggest. It's a common problem on compaqs. The ac power goes through the battery charging circuit before it gets to teh laptop so if the battery's having a strop the laptop won't power up.
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