Laptop not booting

[justmicky]

One of my shipmates here on board his laptop will not boot up When you power it up, the power light is lit, shortly after this,the hard drive indicator light flickers on for a moment and then goes out, the screen illuminates with a "backlight" only, but then that is it all that happens. There is nothing on the screen and no sign of anything else happening.
Using all manner of functions, F1, F2, F10, Delete, Esc, I cannot access the Bios at all. It just seems totally inaccessible.
There are two slots of RAM which I have removed both and tried them one by one in the different slots etc but to no avail. I have removed and re-seated the hard drive to no avail.
My gut feeling is the RAM but for two cards to fail it seems unlikely. Without a spare I cannot test this.
I have tried booting from a recovery disk and although you can hear the drive working, there is nothing doing here either.
Has anyone got any other ideas what might be causing this unresponsive laptop to work?

Cheers

[dissy1810]

it could be a dodgy charger i was once given a laptop with similar problems but he gave the charger to someone else i got a new power supply and the laptop worked fine it turns out the original power supply still worked but was not putting out enough amps to power the laptop

[justmicky]

Originally Posted by dissy1810

it could be a dodgy charger i was once given a laptop with similar problems but he gave the charger to someone else i got a new power supply and the laptop worked fine it turns out the original power supply still worked but was not putting out enough amps to power the laptop

It does exactly the same thing using the battery only. Having said that, it is a new battery (not genuine HP) and new charger (also not genuine HP). Could be worth a try, there is another guy with the same laptop so i shall go ang get his power supply and give it a go.

[justmicky]

No joy, still the same issues using another power supply genuine HP too.

[justmicky]

Another thing i have tried is connecting the laptop to an external monitor to see perhaps if the screen was at fault, but i do not get anything at all on the external screen

[baconbuttyman]

Originally Posted by justmicky

No joy, still the same issues using another power supply genuine HP too.

borrow his ram, try that

[psicobra]

sounds like a typical motherboard faliure and there has been a lot of HP's/Compaqs that have had dodgy mobo's lately what is the exact make and model and i will check to see if it is a common fault.

Andy

[justmicky]

Originally Posted by baconbuttyman

borrow his ram, try that

I can't imagine for a minute that the other guy will let me take the RAM out of his laptop. Yes its a simple job etc, but I just cannot see it happening. I will ask though!

[justmicky]

Originally Posted by psicobra

sounds like a typical motherboard faliure and there has been a lot of HP's/Compaqs that have had dodgy mobo's lately what is the exact make and model and i will check to see if it is a common fault.

Andy

Cheers Andy, I will revert back later with the make and model as I am on watch at the mo so I cannot get access. It will be interesting to see if this is a common fault.

[baconbuttyman]

Originally Posted by psicobra

sounds like a typical motherboard faliure and there has been a lot of HP's/Compaqs that have had dodgy mobo's lately what is the exact make and model and i will check to see if it is a common fault.

Andy

yes they have a grafix card prob, the solder needs refloating. had a few of those my self