Problem with a laptop

I'm helping my parents with their laptop. It has been working fine since they've got it, until recently.

It's a Compaq Presario F739WM.

Lately, it doesn't seem to want to turn on. When you press the power button, the LEDs go on for about a second and the turn off, along with the rest of the laptop.

The strange thing is, every once and a while the laptop will actually turn on and function normally. But most of the time it just does the same thing I mentioned above.

The hard drive seems to be working fine. RAM is properly seated. Motherboard has no problems as far as I'm aware. CPU is properly seated.

Any ideas of what might be wrong? If you have more questions about it, I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

 

Just going on what you said there I will give you some advice which I know due to multiple times previous experiance.

The charger, plug it in and gently give it a wobble is it very secure or quiet loose?
Pull the charger out, look inside the female end, is the prong all over the spot or is it sturdily in the center?

The answers from this will help us move onto the next possible diagnosis/solution.

Good luck

 

DigitalLockSmith is batting on the same lines I am So thats more of us that are putting our money on a hardware issue.

 

The charger is a little loose, but there's a glow so it acknowledges that it's plugged in. Inside the female end, the prongs look like they're staying where they're supposed to be.

According to my dad, it has been dropped recently, but that was weeks ago.
No clue, he said this happened about a month ago too.

Yes, the same thing happens.

Yes, the light come on.

 

Also: When the laptop does finally decide it wants to turn on, it works normally, no problems, no slowdowns, nothing. It looks like it's fine until you close the lid or shut down the laptop, then it goes about doing what it usually does.

And no, it is no longer under warranty.

 

I'd open it up and make sure everything is secure. The drop might have loosened something just enough that when it makes good contact, the laptop works. When the contact is poor, it shuts down.