how to troubleshoot a dead laptop and find the problem

We may offen face the same problem :when our laptop is dead. In this post I’ll explain how to troubleshoot a dead laptop and find the problem. The following troubleshooting tips are not model and brand specific, they should work for most laptops.

Let’s take a look at two different scenarios.

Example 1. The laptop is absolutely dead.
When you plug in the power adapter and press on the power button, there is no signs of life at all. The laptop will not make usual noises, LED will not light up, the fan will not spin, the screen is blank and black, etc… In short, the laptop is dead.

What you can do in this case?
1. Make sure the wall outlet is working and the laptop DC adapter is getting power from the outlet. Try another wall outlet.
2. Test the laptop DC power adapter, make sure the voltage output is correct. You can test the DC power adapter with a voltmeter.
3. Let’s say the DC adapter is fine and the adapter outputs correct voltage. In this case unplug the power adapter from the laptop, remove the battery, wait for 1-2 minutes, plug in the adapter and try turning on the laptop again.

OK, you tested the adapter and it’s bad. If you decide to replace the original DC adapter with a generic one, you’ll have to follow this rule:
The voltage output on your new adapter has to be exactly the same as on the original adapter. The amperage on the new adapter could be the same or higher.

If nothing helps and the laptop is still dead, apparently the motherboard is fried or there is a problem with the DC power jack. It’s possible the DC power jack is broken and the motherboard is not getting any power from the adapter. In this case you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and replace the power jack. Check out this guide for fixing laptop power jack.

Example 2. When you plug the DC power adapter and press on the power button, the laptop starts making normal noises, the LEDs work properly but noting appears on the screen. The laptop will not start.

First of all, take a closer look at the LCD screen. Look at the screen under bright light. It’s possible that the image is still on the screen but it’s very faint. If that’s the case, check out these tips for troubleshooting laptop with backlight failure.

If there is no image on the laptop LCD screen, test the laptop with an external monitor. Connect an external monitor to the VGA port on your laptop and turn the laptop on. You can toggle video output between the internal LCD screen and external monitor by pressing Fn and F4 keys simultaneously on HP laptops, Fn and F5 keys on Toshiba laptops, Fn and F7 keys on IBM laptops. Other laptops may use different key combinations.

Let’s say the external monitor works fine but the internal LCD screen has no image at all. If that’s the case, your problem could be related to the LCD screen or the video cable. Also, make sure the video cable makes good connection with the motherboard and the LCD screen. Try reconnecting, reseating the cable.

In my case, both internal and external monitors were absolutely dead. Neither of them had image. That means the problem is not related to the LCD screen or the video cable. From my experience I know that this problem could be related to the laptop memory.

Try reseating the memory module, maybe it’s not making good connection with the memory slot. Try cleaning contacts on the memory module with pen eraser. Try moving the memory module into another slot. Try replacing the memory module with another known good module, it’s possible that your original module is dead.
If you have two memory modules installed you can try removing them one by one, it’s possible that one of the modules is bad. Try installing different memory modules into different memory slots.

In my case reseating, swapping the memory module didn’t help. I was pretty confident that my problem is not memory related and I moved on.

Try removing battery, hard drive and DVD drive and turning on the laptop without these components.

Also, try turning on the laptop with an external monitor when the video cable is unplugged from the motherboard. If the laptop start with video on the external monitor, apparently there is something wrong with the laptop display panel.

In my case removing the hard drive and DVD drive didn’t help. Unplugging the video cable didn’t help either.
I continued taking my laptop apart piece by piece and tested it after each step.
I removed wireless card, modem, disconnected the keyboard but it didn’t help.

I still wasn’t able to boot the laptop with video on the external monitor.

Finally, I disassembled the laptop and removed the motherboard.

On this picture you see my final test. The motherboard has been removed from the base and I assembled basic barebone system on my bench.
1. Motherboard. Like on most laptops, in my case the video card is integrated into the motherboard
2. CPU with heatsink and cooling fan.
3. Known good memory module.
4. The power button board witch I need to turn on the system.
5. Working DC power adapter.

Still cannot get any video on the external monitor. The system turns on, the cooling fan starts spinning but there is no video.

At this point I’m 95% sure that the motherboard is dead. CPU failures are not very common, so it must be bad motherboard. may be this arcitle is good for you.thank you for reading.

How to good use Dell E1505 adapter by yourself

The Dell E1505 AC adapter

Dell Inspiron E1505 AC Adapter 90W 19.5V 4.62A Description:
Input: AC100-240V (worldwide use)
Output: DC19.5V 4.62A
Power: 90W
Connecter size:
Internal Diameter: 5.0mm
External Diameter: 7.4mm
With central pin inside

This part, like the batteries, is an essential element of your machine and is also the cause of a great number of breakdowns. Indeed, one of the elements most fragile of your laptop is the AC connector, i.e. the connector female in which comes to plug in the plug of your Dell E1505 AC adapter.

The repetition of these plug in and sometimes their useless violence ends regularly up tearing off the female connector of the motherboard.

That often occurs by stage, initially light poor contact, then as you move the cable in all the directions to find the current, the connector is torn off definitively, or the produced sparks roast the motherboard.

An adapter in bad condition (stripped cable, broken case repaired with tape…) is often the cause of a fatal electric problem to the motherboard of your laptop. To avoid that you just have to purchase a new AC adapter (genuine), it is always less expensive than a repair or a swapping of the motherboard.

About the compatible Dell E1505 adapter

To try to save some dollars (whereas often the genuine adapters are not much more expensive) or simply because their retailer does not propose a genuine adapter, much buy “compatible” adapters.

Let me be frank, for repairers these adapters are a blessing! Their male connector, relatively adapted to the socket of the laptop, tears off more often than others the females connectors.

Their voltage and their amperage more or less close to the needs for your laptops and a sometimes irregular flow, even straightforwardly random, and their annoying tendency “to kill the fuses” by at the same time roasting your motherboard and other power cards, are an important source of occupation for the technicians.

The failure rate, properly incredible, due, in an unquestionable or probable way, with these adapters makes that I dis-advise them formally. I am the first to propose to use compatible parts when they are less expensive and as powerful as the original parts. But for the AC adapters I advise prudence

We must have accessories for laptops

Laptop accessories are additional items that can be used to enhance the performance of a laptop computer, improve user experience, or assist in the protection of the laptop.

A laptop is a computer that has a built-in keyboard and a folding screen. Laptops vary widely in size, thickness, and weight and provide computer users the ability to work in a wide range of locations.

Most of the time people wouldn’t give much importance to these kind of accessories (such as laptop battery ,laptop replacement keyboard,laptop ac adapter,laptop car charger,laptop universal power) as they gave for the main things. In our case the customers will give less importance for the laptop accessories when compared to a new laptop before buying it. But the thing is the laptop case is going to protect the main thing i mean the laptop. Like that only all the accessories have their own roles protecting their main things or primary things. In this article I have shared some basic ideas on choosing a laptop case .A lot of companies out there giving false information for people regarding their products. So the wise thing is we should snag information’s regarding a product before going to buy one.http://www.udtek.com/laptop-battery-c-1.html

The desktop ages are over, and now everywhere laptops have become a part of people in everyday life. The laptop has turned into a must have product while going for offices or while going for some business trips. While going for buying a laptop mostly people will ignore important things to be considered. This happens because they are ready to spend a lot of money for the laptops, but when it comes to accessories they are satisfied with the freebies given with these big things. That’s the reason most of the companies are giving their customers a laptop cases with their products, But Giants like Sony and Dell don’t have any free option like those, because they don’t want to give their customers some cheap laptop cases as a free thing. Regular cases, which are given with the laptops are soft and they are used for only common accidents not for the hard bumps or drops or water. Below are the some of the important guidelines you should have a look while going for a new laptop case.

The first and the foremost thing you should consider should be the waterproof property of the laptop because the most often the laptops are affected by water only. So its wise to test the laptop case there itself in the store before making the purchase. And the next thing you should consider is the chemical resistant proof on the top of the case. Most of the leather cases will come with this option only. The third thing you should have a serious look is the space inside the bag. If it is used only for carrying a laptop then you can go for ordinary ones, but if you need to put something else like mobile phones or chargers for the laptops. These are the important things you have to take a look before making a buy. I could confirm that the knowledge presented above can give you a real advantage.

The way to use the cheap laptop battery as an expensive one

What happens when you buy a cheap battery that quickly loses its kick? You don’t want to have to go out and buy another battery, then you will have spent more than it would have cost to get a good one originally. Or maybe you already have a really good laptop battery and you just want to keep it running at its peak performance, to prevent a future purchase. Either way you need to know the secrets to extending the life of that laptop battery such as Original HP Pavilion dv8000 Battery 8 cells 4400mAh, and I am going to share them with you.

http://www.udtek.com/original-hp-pavilion-dv8000-battery-cells-4400mah-p-30282.html

So what exactly can happen if you don’t take care of that cheap laptop battery?

just follow the simple tips .

Don’t allow your laptop battery to discharge completely. Allowing a battery to completely discharge can have very negative effects on the overall performance and life of the battery. Often times we find that by draining the battery can in some cases cause complete battery failure or drastically shorten the charge capacity of the battery. What this means in plain English is your battery will die and/or not hold as much of a charge therefor draining quicker than it should.

Many manufacturers recommend that your battery is stored and maintained at around half or 40% charge to maintain optimal performance. Always read the user manual that came with your laptop, or if it is a replacement battery read the included documentation.

Add more memory or RAM to your laptop. Many people would speculate that this method will not help to save battery performance due to the fact that more memory requires more power to maintain. While this reasoning is true in part, if your laptop is short on RAM, your hard drive will be constantly running to make up the difference, via your swapping file, which in turn would use a lot more power and battery life. If you are using a laptop that has say 512mb of RAM, increasing this to 1gb should be more than enough to maintain optimal performance.

Turn off your Wifi while not in use. There is usually a switch to turn off your Wifi, however you may need to turn it off in the Wifi configuration panel. Your Wifi uses a lot of power when it is not connected because it is constantly searching for a connection, so it is a good idea to make sure it is turned off when not in use.

Remove your battery while running your laptop on AC. If you are working from home and your laptop is plugged in to the AC, removing your battery is a good habit to have. Keep in mind that you do not want to store your battery completely discharged, but this method will allow your laptop battery to take a break while not in use.

Take care of your battery and keep it clean. I should probably say this twice, but I won’t. Taking care of your laptop battery is crucial to its performance. Over time the metal contacts on the battery will build up gunk that can cause the battery to work harder than it should in its daily operation. So once a month, pull out the battery and wipe it down with a cloth, clean off the contacts and you will extend its life.

Lower your graphics use. You can save a lot of power consumption by dimming your screen, lowering the screen resolution and removing the fancy graphics. Windows especially uses a lot of graphics on the menu’s and such, which is easily turned off and cut out a lot of the battery drain. The overall look may not be as pretty, but were going for battery life here.

Remove USB devices when not in use. Usb devices often require a good amount of power to continue running. If you are not using them make sure to remove them from the computer and this will help to save on battery consumption.

Defragment your hard drive regularly. Defragmenting your hard drive can help it to run more efficiently and require less power consumption. The more efficiently your hard drive operates the less work it will require to maintain operation. So keeping this in order and defragmenting regularly will benefit the life of your laptops battery.

Keep your laptops air vents clean. Laptops, or computers in general operate more efficiently when running at cooler temperatures. This is also why you see high end computers with water cooling systems. Anyways, by keeping the air vents clean you allow more air flow for the fans to run and the laptop will remain considerably cooler.

Optimal laptop performance causes optimal battery performance. Over all, the better your laptop performs the longer your laptop battery will last. It is very disruptive to your day when your laptop battery dies and you are constantly looking for a good place to plug in. So use the tips above to maintain your laptops battery at peak performance and life on the go should be a little easier.

Set your laptop to hibernate rather than stand-by mode while sitting idle. While stand-by mode is great for saving on power consumption, setting your laptop to hibernate will allow the computer to completely shut itself down and still save your laptops state where you left off. Both options are good, you should at least be doing one of them, but hibernation will be the most effective.

Good HP Pavilion dv8000 Battery has a good Excellent life

I ordered the HP Pavilion dv8000 Battery replacement for my DV8000 Notebook and I love it. Because when I am travelling and I don’t have access to an laptop AC adapter plug, I now have a back up battery to assist me. Now that I have two Batteries I get twice as much computer time as I did before. That is a big bonus when you are taking a class online and taking a no do-over test.! Thanks Udtek .com I love your products!! I will tell my friends to buy what they want. http://www.udtek.com/original-hp-pavilion-dv8000-battery-cells-4400mah-p-30282.html

No need to call it quits! Keep on working, playing, or watching movies for up to twice as long¹with this compact, lightweight battery.

• Use your notebook without having to plug in the laptop AC adapter
• Store easily in your carrying case while traveling or commuting
• Eliminate worry about running out of power when you need it
• Warranty: one-year limited
• Compatibility: HP Pavilion dv8000

most people don’t know notebook battery life varies depending on notebook PC model, configuration, applications, power-management settings, and features being used. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity decreases with time and usage. Factors that significantly affect battery life include its age, charge level, whether or not you’re using wireless connectivity (802.11 or Bluetooth), and the level of LCD brightness.