Laptop powers on, no HD or CPU Activity. CPU fan comes on for 3 seconds then off

When I try to turn my Gateway NV52 laptop on the cpu fan (or one near it) runs for 3 seconds and then turns off.

No boot up, HD spinning, beeps or anything. It shows the power is on and there is power to the USB ports as well as the CD/ROM (which will still open and also spin for a little while when a disk is inserted) I cannot however get it to do anything else.

Have checked the power cord. It reads on my multimeter as putting out
19.7 v.

Have checked the battery. It seems to be good.

Have tried completely draining the battery, did various tests and then partially recharged battery and repeated tests and finally charged battery fully and did same tests.

Other things I have tried

1. the hard reset method where you unplug power, remove battery hold down power button for 60 seconds then
a. plug in power but leave battery out and try
b. put in battery and leave power cord unplugged
c. put in both battery and power cord
Have tried EACH of these multiple times. Also with a fully charged battery, a partially charged and a completely drained battery.

Also have

disconnected (tests then reconnected) the keyboard,

disconnected (tests then reconnected) hard drive,

took out 2 sticks of 2 gb ram,
took out just the second stick,
then tried it taking out just the first stick (just in case I had the order wrong),
then tried swapping the sticks with each other and tested,
then yet again just the second stick and
then tried with just the first stick.

tried disconnecting the power button immediately after pressing it (in case it was a short in the wire somewhere that was causing the fan to shut down and the cpu and hard drive not to power up)

have cleaned the inside THOUROUGHLY with compressed air. There is very very little or no dust inside anywhere anymore. Did this After it stopped booting up and do not think the air has caused anything to become dislodged

have tried opening the top of the laptop as far as it will go and tested then

as well as testing after moving it back and forth several times and

also tested with the screen open to various amounts.

Have even tried to power up with the screen nearly closed/and closed. (in case it was a sensor problem with the laptop lid). Laptop would not start up or do anything while lid was closed/nearly closed.

Hooked up an external monitor in case the laptop monitor was not working and I was missing some message re: the problem. Nothing showed up on the external monitor either and I don't think my laptop screen has an issue.

looked for loose pieces of metal or bare wires that might be causing a short. Nothing found.

all of these previous things have been tried seperately as well as in various combinations

I have done some research on the net first but have been unable to find what else besides what I have tried, might be causing this or what a solution might be (other than comments to others like "time to call a repairman" or "your motherboard is probably friend dude" ) rolleyes

I am hoping some kind knowledgable soul is out there and can help me out with some ideas of what is wrong and/or possible solutions.

I feel like I am forgetting something but will post this before it gets too much longer.

Thanks in advance

Cameron

 

I compliment you on your thorough testing and detailed post.

Given the PC is getting current (power lights stay on, CD drive opens) but there is no video display (either on the internal or an external monitor), my guess is that either the GPU (on board video) or other part of the motherboard has bit the dust.

In some cases, a tech who specializes in notebooks can attempt to "reflow" (reset) the GPU. This is less expensive than a board replacement; however the long-term success of a reflow repair is only about 50%.

If the unit is out of warranty, the repair will be a judgment call: A replacement board is likely to run +$200 with little or no warranty on the replacement. In contrast, I've seen Gateway/Acer/eMachines (all the same manufacturer) with a slightly faster processor, more memory and a larger hard drive new in box as low as $299-$349.

 

Thank you gman863! I have posted the issue on techsupportforum.com as well (very irritating site because it has video with audio that plays everytime you go to a new page or even refresh the page you are on) and it has had 127views but no replies and so I am very grateful that someone here has taken pity on me.

I've been worried it might be something that is more money and trouble to fix than to buy something new. Just out of curiosity do you think reseting the cmos by removing the coin battery would so anything at all? I ask because in this model of laptop just getting to the cmos battery means pretty much taking apart the entire laptop.

If anyone else has any ideas I'd sure welcome them. One thing I forgot to mention is that the power button broke off a while back and so we have just been using the two wires to turn it off and on by touching them together (and then making very sure they are apart and they are not touching any metal on the computer). This still works to "turn on" the computer but no matter how long I touch the two together or if I touch one or both to a metal ground on the laptop it will not "turn off" I have to unplug the power cord and remove the battery in order to do that.

Does this information change anything in anyone's mind?

Thanks again, Major Geeks rocks, techsupportforum not so much.

Cameron

 

It won't hurt to try to pull the CMOS battery for about a minute then reinsert it. Anything's possible; however I fear the odds are against you on this fixing the issue.

If the power button is also shot, I'd bite the bullet and use this as an excuse to upgrade to a new PC. As for the old one - if the screen and case are still good - you may be able to get a few bucks selling it "for parts or not working" on eBay. Just remember to delete any personal files from the old hard drive first (or remove the drive and list it as "hard drive not included").