Dropped laptop doesn't work

[Copasta]

Hello all,
A friend recently gave me a Gateway P6822 laptop that he said wasn't working. He told me it was dropped, and that since then, it would start up but there is nothing on the screen. Thinking it was possibly the screen or backlight, I accepted the laptop, free of charge!
When I got home with it, I tore into it to see what could be wrong. When you press the power button, all the lights come on (power light, media buttons, etc.), and it has power (press dvd button, and it opens the dvd player, etc.) but there is nothing on the screen just as he said! I thought for sure it was the screen, so I took off the power button bezel plate and checked the ribbon cables to the inverter, etc. Removed and reseated those.....still nothing!
It was then that I realized that when you press the power button, the fan only spins up for like 3 seconds, and then stops! The fan should be running almost constently, correct? I have tried reseating the memory sticks, wireless card, even the cpu......to no avail!
Does anyone have ANY ideas as to what can be the problem? Possible hard drive issues? I took the HDD out and installed in another laptop, but kept getting the BSOD! I tried running diagnostics on it in BIOS, but it "failed". I then tried the GOOD HDD in the other laptop, and got the same result of lights, fan spin for 3 secs, etc.!
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I have somewhat of a knowledge about computers, but nothing intense! I generally know enough to mess things up, so be as detailed in your response as you can, if you would please! Thanks in advance for any help on this issue! It's a really nice laptop if I can get it working! Thanks again!

P.S. Laptop Specs:
1.5 Intel Centrino Duo Processor
2 x 512MB memory
250GB HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium

[JonBoyFishhead]

Originally Posted by Copasta

Hello all,
A friend recently gave me a Gateway P6822 laptop that he said wasn't working. He told me it was dropped, and that since then, it would start up but there is nothing on the screen. Thinking it was possibly the screen or backlight, I accepted the laptop, free of charge!
When I got home with it, I tore into it to see what could be wrong. When you press the power button, all the lights come on (power light, media buttons, etc.), and it has power (press dvd button, and it opens the dvd player, etc.) but there is nothing on the screen just as he said! I thought for sure it was the screen, so I took off the power button bezel plate and checked the ribbon cables to the inverter, etc. Removed and reseated those.....still nothing!
It was then that I realized that when you press the power button, the fan only spins up for like 3 seconds, and then stops! The fan should be running almost constently, correct? I have tried reseating the memory sticks, wireless card, even the cpu......to no avail!
Does anyone have ANY ideas as to what can be the problem? Possible hard drive issues? I took the HDD out and installed in another laptop, but kept getting the BSOD! I tried running diagnostics on it in BIOS, but it "failed". I then tried the GOOD HDD in the other laptop, and got the same result of lights, fan spin for 3 secs, etc.!
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I have somewhat of a knowledge about computers, but nothing intense! I generally know enough to mess things up, so be as detailed in your response as you can, if you would please! Thanks in advance for any help on this issue! It's a really nice laptop if I can get it working! Thanks again!

P.S. Laptop Specs:
1.5 Intel Centrino Duo Processor
2 x 512MB memory
250GB HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium

With that issue of not staying on after being dropped, my first gues would be to completely strip it down to CPU and reseat everything. If still not geting any better, than chances are it's the motherboard.

[the mekanic]

Reading your symptoms, I would surmise the HDD (hard drive) took more of beating than it could handle.

They are rated to withstand a certain amount of shock, but as they age, the G's that can be sustained decrease. The most likely sign of a failed hard drive, is no MBR cursor in the upper left corner of the screen. It won't even say "OS not found" sometimes.

The reason for the BSOD, is that an HDD is usually specific to the PC it was formatted, and installed on. Often, it cannot be compatible as a swap, without being "tweaked".

I would say hard drive failure, but that is only my humble opinion.

[Copasta]

Thanks guys for the replies! Would the hard drive being bad make the screen not show anything, though? I'm worried that I'm not seeing ANYTHING on the screen! I have taken the cpu out and reseated it and that didn't seem to work. I've tried booting up without memory in, without HDD in, etc., and still there is absolutely nothing showing on the screen. I have also tried to hook up an external monitor, but nothing there as well! I'm stumped!

Mek.......How would I go about "tweaking" the hard drive to see if that was the issue? Any suggestions?

[iain.t]

if an external will not work it may mean that you have graphics card issue, try and locate where it is on the board and press on the outer casing of the laptop in the general area of the card, as the drop may have broken the contact between card and board.
iain.t

[ACE 256]

Originally Posted by Copasta

Hello all,
A friend recently gave me a Gateway P6822 laptop that he said wasn't working. He told me it was dropped, and that since then, it would start up but there is nothing on the screen. Thinking it was possibly the screen or backlight, I accepted the laptop, free of charge!
When I got home with it, I tore into it to see what could be wrong. When you press the power button, all the lights come on (power light, media buttons, etc.), and it has power (press dvd button, and it opens the dvd player, etc.) but there is nothing on the screen just as he said! I thought for sure it was the screen, so I took off the power button bezel plate and checked the ribbon cables to the inverter, etc. Removed and reseated those.....still nothing!
It was then that I realized that when you press the power button, the fan only spins up for like 3 seconds, and then stops! The fan should be running almost constently, correct? I have tried reseating the memory sticks, wireless card, even the cpu......to no avail!
Does anyone have ANY ideas as to what can be the problem? Possible hard drive issues? I took the HDD out and installed in another laptop, but kept getting the BSOD! I tried running diagnostics on it in BIOS, but it "failed". I then tried the GOOD HDD in the other laptop, and got the same result of lights, fan spin for 3 secs, etc.!
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I have somewhat of a knowledge about computers, but nothing intense! I generally know enough to mess things up, so be as detailed in your response as you can, if you would please! Thanks in advance for any help on this issue! It's a really nice laptop if I can get it working! Thanks again!

P.S. Laptop Specs:
1.5 Intel Centrino Duo Processor
2 x 512MB memory
250GB HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium

First off the HDD is irrelevant. Alive or dead it will not stop the laptop from showing a post screen. First off try taking all of the ram out then turning it on. Most laptops will beep or give some kind of error light flash to show there is no memory. Most of the time this only will happen if the mobo is working at least good enough to post. Secondly get a bright flashlight and shine it very close to the screen when you turn it on. If the back light is bad there will be a very faint ghost image present. Also the external screen might simply need to be enabled, there should be some kind of function key combo to toggle between external internal or both. Dropped laptop are quite common at the shop I work at. Most of the time they suffer either broken screen/backlight and/or HDD damage. It should be noted that the 3 sec fan speed issue is rather common. There is a brief moment during power on where the system is running but the fan speed management subsystem is not yet running. The fan is simply ran at max till the speed management is active.

[the mekanic]

I assumed he meant no image after POST.


Do you see the Gateway splash screen at all?

[GCWesq]

... and does it give a POST beep when booting?

[Copasta]

I tried the no memory boot....nothing!
I tried the flashlight trick......didn't see anything.
I tried the external monitor button.....to no avail.

I will have to try to locate the graphics card.
Just to reiterate.....I have NOTHING on the screen....no POST messages, no beeps, no Gateway splash screen.....could be MOBO.....IDK!

[GCWesq]

Try removing the CMOS battery for a couple of hours - and make sure it wasn't dislodged by dropping in the first place.

[the mekanic]

I think it may be soldered to that board.

[Copasta]

It's not soldered in....I took it out but have to leave town until tomorrow night, so I'll leave it out til then and try again! Thanks guys for the help.....I'm still hoping I can get it going!

[Copasta]

Ok, I put the battery back in and nothing has changed! Any other suggestions?

[the mekanic]

Pull the HDD, boot, and see if you get the Gateway "splash screen".

Other than that, I can't say much more without it "on the bench".

[ACE 256]

Originally Posted by Copasta

Ok, I put the battery back in and nothing has changed! Any other suggestions?

Try a different CPU and ram. Other then that look closely at the motherboard, look for missing SMD components that might have been broken off in the fall. If you have the motherboard out, or can get it out, use a scanner (works way better then a camera) to get high resolution scans of both sides and upload them. We can take a close look for broken off components.

[onegoodman]

First Reset the BIOS then plug it into an external monitor, Sounds like a BIOS problem the chip could be damaged.

[ACE 256]

Originally Posted by onegoodman

First Reset the BIOS then plug it into an external monitor, Sounds like a BIOS problem the chip could be damaged.

If you read the whole thread you would have seen that that has already been covered with no results..... Post quality over post count....