# Laptop won't start up.



## gohammergo (Dec 18, 2005)

Hello All, and thanks in advance for any help you can give. I picked up a Compaq laptop from a co-worker. He said it just wouldn't start up one day. I thought maybe the battery was bad, but I put the one out of mine in it and it still wouldn't start. I have no idea what to check next. Is there some kind of reset button? A diode somewhere? It's not a high dollar pc, and probably not worth bringing in to a shop to get fixed, but since it was free I thought it would be fun to mess around with it and see if I can get it running. Compaq is pretty popular and I thought someone here may be able to point me in the right direction.

Thanks again, John


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

Try this: Remove the power plug. Then remove the battery. Then press the power switch down for about 20 seconds. Put the battery back in and reconnect power plug. Then try starting. 

This has happened with one of my laptops and this procedure gets it back to normal.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Try MichaelZ's solution, its a good one, if that doesn't work: Does anything light up when you press the power button? (screen, power button, anything)


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## gohammergo (Dec 18, 2005)

Tried the above and it didn't work. It is a PresarioCQ56. There are no lights at all. No power button, no screen lights. Even when the power cord is hooked up the small charging light that is on the side of the machine does not light up. Are these hard to work on? I took off the two small covers off the back to see what was inside them. Can I just take the whole back cover off? I've done a bit of electronic work years ago on cb radios and such and found back then that there was usually a very simple fix to these. Bad fuse, solder joint, diode, etc. The case with this is, it was being used most every day, and then one day just wouldn't power up. Thanks again for the time to read this and more so for the time to answer!


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## Steve in PA (Nov 25, 2011)

My Dell at work does the exact same thing. It's the power button. Had to google all over the place to find out if you press on the motherboard in a certain location the bad solder points will work. I'm still using it because I have too much work-related stuff on there to move.

Try Michaels solution with a variation, leave it unplugged and without a battery overnight.


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## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

The light does not turn on when the battery charger is plugged in?? 
Maybe the connection isn't working anymore, needs to have the part replaced, soddered on and then it might work. My other one my DH got from a coworker had the same issue. The connection failed, battery could not be charged up anymore and the light would not turn on, no power at all. 
But you changed out the battery, so it should do _something._ Unless there's another serious issue somewhere...

Motherboard could of fried, too. 

I've replaced my HD when my old one died, light still worked. Easy fix and can be very cheap if you don't mind using Linux. 

New laptops are fairly cheap now...I wouldn't really bother spending much money to get it to work when you have zero idea what is wrong and why it failed. Might be worth taking to a shop to be checked out, might not. If it needs a new jack, motherboard, harddrive, something else...up to you. 

If you have one of those kits that turn a laptop HD into an external drive for storage, you can check it to see if it even works. Then you can rule that out.


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

Sounds like perhaps the power cord is not connecting - this will give you a dead battery and then nothing. Take the laptop with you to a computer store and try a different power cord in the store - won't cost you anything (unless you buy a new cord) and while you are there you might get some free advice on what to check next.


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## gohammergo (Dec 18, 2005)

Thanks again to all who answered. 
I did try a different known good battery, in fact the one from the pc I am using right now. I used the power cord from the broken pc to charge the good battery, so I know the charger and cord is good. I put the broken pc battery into my good pc and it did work, so the battery is good.

I don't want to put any money into it. It's not really too hot of a computer, but it was free!
I think I may just take it apart and see if I can find anything wrong with it. If nothing more, I now have an extra charger and battery.

Speaking of batteries, has anyone ever taken apart a lap top battery? I heard that there if you take them apart that you can salvage some good lithium batteries.


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Laptops generally use a L connector adapter jack on the mother board with insufficient ruggedizing for repeated plugging and unplugging as an engineered obsoleting factor in my opinion.

Over the years I have disassembled six or seven laptops and either found replacement jacks at my local electronics hobby shop and ruggedized the connector avionics style to the main board or used a mating power transformer pigtail from my junk box to replace the power jack with a pigtail line strain relieved to the laptop case and replaced the plug on the power transformer with the mating end of the junk box pigtail.

Power jack replacement and ruggedizing costs about $15 in parts as opposed to the zero parts cost of junk boxing and looks nicer but both worked. 

The biggest hassle was the heart lung transplant long part of tearing the laptops down and reassembling them without production grade tools.


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## gohammergo (Dec 18, 2005)

So, you mean I would need more than a screwdriver, pliers, and hammer for this project? Hmmmm... 

I tried leaving the battery out all night and then installing it with the power cord hooked up. No lights or action at all. So I guess I am going to take it apart and see what I can find.

Thanks to all who took the time to read this and respond. Happy Thanksgiving!


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