Laptop advice

I've got an HP Pavilion Entertainment PC dv6000. I recently updated it by putting in a 2 GB stick of DDR RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive. But now I guess the motherboard is shot. So now I am wondering it is I should do, because I don't want that stick of RAM and the hard drive to go t waste. If anyone had some advice it would be greatly appreciated

 

First, be sure it's an issue with the motherboard.

Will the PC boot up with the extra (new) memory removed? If so the new memory may not be compatible - in extreme cases this can cause the PC not to boot.

After removing the added memory, can you boot from the CD/DVD drive using a Windows install, restore or Linux disk? If so, it may be a defective hard drive or a bad HDD connector. Before testing this, go into the BIOS setup and be sure the CD/DVD drive is set as the first boot device.

Are you trying to downgrade from Vista or 7 to XP? Many newer HPs won't recognize an XP install due to a weird "restore" glitch in the BIOS.

If neither of these steps solve the issue, you may be able to sell it "as-is" to a local PC shop that restores/sells used PCs or list it on eBay. If you go the eBay route, search the completed listings to see what similar "for parts or not working" notebook PCs have recently sold for before setting a starting bid or "Buy It Now" price.

Hope this info helps.

 

well i took it to UB Micro, our campus's computer repair shop and they told me that the motherboard was shot, I was wondering if i should just get a new motherboard for it or should I see if i can find a newer/cheap laptop and screp the parts from my old one?

 

The parts are definitely worth keeping, and are easy to remove (usually)

The HDD can deffo be used in another laptop, it will be SATA HDD and that is what virtually all modern laptops use.

The RAM will be DDR2 (aka PC2) and is the most popular type of RAM available today, so again it is likely to be tranferrable to your new one, or you can sell it if its not.

Same goes for the dead laptop, even with the parts removed and the motherboard dead, it will be worth a few £/$/? on ebay.

 

I'd cut your losses and get a new one. Shops that offer mobo replacement usually use used boards (for example, one salvaged from a unit with a dead screen) that come with (at most) a 30-day warranty.

Depending on your budget, I would look at Dell's Vostro (business) series. Although a bit pricier, they ship without crapware and usually include on-site (not mail-in) warranty service. If price is a primary concern, my opinion is Toshiba is the best you'll find at a $400 or so price point.

Don't go back to HP/Compaq. The amount of crapware preinstalled could choke a horse and their warranty service is (at best) so-so. Ditto for Acer, Gateway and eMachines.

Skip the store's extended warranty pitch. If you carry the notebook PC around a lot and want an accidental damage warranty, check out www.squaretrade.com. They charge a lot less, will refund the purchase price of the PC if it can't be fixed within 5 days and are the only extended warranty company to consistantly receive "5 Star" ratings on consumer review sites. They also have a special starting Black Friday: 20% off all warranties using the coupon code "JINGLE".

Hope this info helps.

 

what if I get a cheap desktop computer. Would it be possible to put to put my 2 GB ddr RAM stick in there along with my 500 GB laptop hard drive? Is this a possibility?

 

The memory used in notebooks is a different size/pin type than desktop memory. If you have DDR2 notebook memory it will only work in another notebook that takes DDR2.

For the HDD, I'd buy an 2.5" external drive housing (about $15) and use it for backups of the new PC.

 

When troubleshooting problems with computers you begin with the easiest and most likely possibilities and gradually test for the more bizarre and tougher things to diagnose. Ultimately, after exhausting all possibilities, you're left with the diagnosis of last resort: the motherboard is shot. Those of us who diagnose software problems will reach a similar last resort of: reformat and reinstall windows.

The reason I say this is that the less proficient and lazier a comp tech is, the faster they jump to the last resort, and skip other possibilities. Having said this, mobos do go bad for a whole bunch of reasons and it's quite possible yours is dead. So if you didn't have full faith in the UB Micro guy or have some doubts that the mobo is truely dead then it may be worth doing some troubleshooting. Or else if you feel the mobo is clearly bad and the guy was right, then there's no need to double-check.

From here on out I'm assuming the mobo is dead. It looks like you paid about $500 for your laptop (depending on when and where you bought it from), and ebay has a used one for just under $400. Ebay also has a broken one which I expect will ultimately sell for about $150-$200 (perhaps towards the lower end as they're not 100% sure what's wrong with it). That gives you two opportunities - you can either buy this or another broken laptop and do some frankensteining; or you can put yours up on ebay too and expect to get about the same amount of money. Replacing the mobo is the single most labor-intensive hardware replacement there is. I wouldn't advise it if you're at all worried about it - though if you're very careful and smart you can definitely do it). That also means that any store/guy offering to do it for you will probably charge over $100 for their time.

Be warned when buying broken laptops on ebay that you have zero guarantee since you're getting something advertised as broken and are merely hoping that some parts work. I expect the author often knows what's wrong with it but acts dumb and vague to encourage gold-panners. Also be sure that if you sell yours on ebay that you either don't include or extensively wipe your hard drive because data mining + identity theft is a really big business.

As an experiment I once extracted information from a hard drive from an old broken comp my wife bought for me from a garage sale. Not only was I able to collect their names, email passwords (messenger programs store them) and addresses, but even their social security numbers (from resumes)! As I had recovered their email address and sent them an email alerting them to the dangers.

 

I would have loved to have seen there face when they read that email :-D


I've received laptops where upon opening it up and booting it auto logged into ther hotmail & MSN rolleyes

Nevermind all the photo's i've seen

 

To expand on 94dgrif's thoughts, replacing the mobo on a notebook is much more difficult than replacing one in a desktop system.

In taking the case apart, you will be dealing with microscopic screws of different sizes. Mix them up or lose one and you'll have a Rubick's Cube moment attempting to put things back together. In addition, the internal cables and connectors are usually specific to the brand/model and very fragile; you won't find "generic" cables if you need to replace one.

The $100-$200 you'd save by attempting to have a shop replace the board or attempting to replace the board yourself isn't worth it: With little (if any) warranty you're playing PC roulette with less-than-stellar odds.

Although I have replaced dozens of desktop mobos over the years, I avoid working on notebook boards like the plague.

 

Did the problem only start when they upgraded the ram and disk? If so I would seek a second opinion. Like many, I've heard many horror stories about the tales some so called technicians try on to make a sale or cover mistakes.

Cheers

 

Well the problem roots back to last year when my whole system crashed. so at numerous points I would try to do system restore, but it wouldn't run. So I took it to a local computer technician and he told me it was probably a cooling problem, so I went out and got a cooling pad, anyways, I still don't think it loaded up, so I tried using my mom's Acer recovery discs (which came with Windows 7) and see if that would work on my hp laptop. Anyways it started to work sort of. but it kept freezing up So I had assumed that there was a problem with the RAM and/or Hard Drive because where before the problems started I was running XP on 1 GB of Ram and a 125 GB HD and now I was trying to run windows 7 on the same specs.

So I upgraded the hard drive and the RAM to 2GB of RAM and a 500 GB HD but that still didnt fix the problem. So this time I took it to Best Buy and the guy told me it was because I was missing some sort of coprocessor and that it was likely the result of using an acer recovery disc on an hp laptop. so he advised me to try and reload windows xp onto it and then from there upgrade to windows 7 using a legit windows 7 disc. Anyways I think i tried doing just that but even though I was able to run xp it was still freezing up, so it is at this point where I take it to UB micro to have them run a diagnostics. I mentioned to them everything I told you especially that the ram and the hard drive had been upgraded and they came to the conclusion that it was a problem with the motherboard and that it was shot. and it was to either get a new motherboard or get a new laptop.

My problem is I don't really want to have bought the hard drive and the ram for nothing so i figured my best bet would be to just get a cheap new laptop with less than 2GB of ram and less than 500GB of storage and then just put the new hd and ram in there. and then just sell the the rest of the hp laptop online. also I was steering towards something that wasn't an hp, because I've heard they were kinda shitty and speaking from experience as well. I mean the powercord alone kept giving me trouble.

 

There was a lot of good information in your post.

I imagine the Acer CD would have installed all the Acer hardware drivers and deleted all the HP hardware drivers - 'drivers' are the software that Windows uses to communicate with all your hardware. I'm surprised it loaded up at all though, so maybe this was a Windows 7 upgrade CD instead?

I'm not sure what the GS guy meant about the 'co-processor'. I can only think he meant that you had either the wrong or a missing driver installed.

All in all I think there's a legitimate argument that the motherboard might be okay. When something goes bad on a motherboard I expect that part to just plum not work; whether that be the USBs, the hard drive controller, or the mobo simply doesn't power up. Having said that there are a few components that are often permanently attached to a laptop and could still be the cause; the graphics chip or even the CPU for example.

So you have a choice. Your original post just asked what options you have to recoup value in your situation. I think we've probably covered all the options, but now we have an extra one. If you'd like to, we can troubleshoot the problem from scratch. If the motherboard does turn out to be the problem, then we've wasted some time, but if it's not then you save some money. It would be a fairly long troubleshoot though because like I said before, to diagnose a faulty motherboard you really have to eliminate all other possibilities.

If it is something you want to go ahead with, the first thing I'd do is install whatever version of windows you have on the 500GB HDD, go to the HP website and download and install all the drivers for the laptop, and then leave it on (without letting it go to standby/hibernation) to see if it crashes.

 

Question #1: Right now, when you turn the laptop on, what happens? If you initially get a normal BIOS boot screen, there is a possibility the mobo is still good.

Question #2: As noted in my previous post, have you tried removing the added memory and attempted to boot using only the HP OEM memory? If this at least gets you to the Windows splash screen, the odds are good the new memory is either defective or doesn't work well with your PC. Memory issues can either show as a boot issue or as a Blue Screen of Death once the PC has been on from anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Windows 7 memory tester will not always correctly diagnose this, so it's best to test this as stated here.

If this works (even if you get error messages loading Windows), do a fresh reinstall of XP. If the PC behaves normally with XP reinstalled, go to microsoft.com and run the Windows 7 advisor tool: It should show if your PC has any red flags on running Windows 7.

Finally, be sure the cooling fan installed inside the PC is blowing properly. If it is dirty or broken, this is likely the overheating problem that is shutting down the PC.

Before you buy any new PC, you need to assess what apps you'll be using it for. A cheap PC with 2GB or less of RAM and a small HDD also comes with a very basic (usually single-core) CPU. For web surfing or word processing this is fine. If you plan on doing any gaming, Photoshop, other intense apps or using a USB TV tuner card, you'll be sorely disappointed in its performance; adding your old memory will do little (if anything) to make it faster. If the aftermarket memory you move to this new PC is either defective or incompatible, you'll have the same issues on the new PC

I agree HP is a terrible brand. During the Holidays, you should be able to find a decent brand (Sony, Toshiba or Dell Vostro) with a dual-core CPU and at least 3GB memory for under $500. If the mobo is truly bad, sell the old one with the memory (but not the HDD) on eBay. Keep the 500GB HDD, buy an external USB enclosure (about $15) for it and keep it as a backup drive.

As for the power adapter, most OEM ones are junk. The most common failure is the wire running from the power brick to the PC breaks internally. If you ever need to replace a notebook PSU, there are plenty of decent aftermarket universal notebook power adapters in the $40-$50 range - half of what HP and other mfrs. charge for a replacement "OEM" unit.

Hope this info. helps.

 

ok I have an update, I was finally able to go home and I tried to see if I get the HP laptop (HP Pavilion dv6000 series, dv6125om) to run just for kicks. To my amazement though it started to work again. So I figured I would try and start fresh and upload the Windows 7 disc that people at UB Micro gave me (Windows 7 32bit). The computer froze a few times during the whole ordeal it took to get windows 7 up and running again, but right now it seems to be running pretty smoothly. My only complaint is the screen resolution seems to be a little low, as in like everything seems huge on the screen, also I can't find the built in webcam, and theres no sound so can someone please help me with these problems it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Windows 7 isn't up there....

 

Before upgrading any PC from XP to Win 7, it's always a good idea to run Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It will check the compatibility of the PC plus any connected devices (printers, scanners, etc.).

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor

Although not related to the OP's issue, it should also be noted that many PCs that ship with Win 7 preinstalled cannot be downgraded to XP. If you or a client need an XP-based PC to run business software, it is best to either custom build a system or purchase one from a reputable vendor (Dell, MicroCenter, etc.) that either has XP preinstalled or has Win 7 Pro with a specific statement in the product description the downgrade option to XP Pro is both compatible with and ships with the unit at no additional cost.

 

Go direct to nvidia, and click the boxes for a driver for your graphics /
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk
They have a tool to look into your laptop, and check any nvidia drivers needed- I cannot remember if I actually updated from ther, but I know the Vista one did work.
Otherwise, install all the Vista drivers(I assume you have 32bit, but you need to be sure, as the 64 bit will not work with a 32bit, and viceversa.)
I just recently was given the exact model you have, and I installed Windows 7 on it,and at first the video(graphics) were a bit rough, like yours.
Believe it , or, not, techies told the man his motherboard was at fault- they can be so lazy (or, money grabbing ?) All that was wrong as it would not boot up was the start button lead had become faulty- On replacing that- I had a free laptop- SORRY, some techies.........
Anyway -Vista runs O.K on it, and W7 will.........

 

my sound still doesn't work

 

Hi

Have you gone to the HP site and looked up, downloaded, and installed the sound drivers for your computer?

 

yes I says all my drivers are up to date

 

First install the universal....from hp link.
» Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) Bus Driver for High Definition Audio (sp33867)
Then install
» Conexant High Definition Audio Driver
reboot. and the driver should be ok

 

Thanks for the tip on the UK site. Although I'm not the OP, I'm bookmarking it in the event this issue ever pops up on a client's PC.

As for the number of lazy and money grabbing techs, I agree. Here in the States, many of the large retail chains (such as B:*** B:***'s G:*** S:***d) tend to hire people with very limited troubleshooting skills at pay well below a living wage. They once gave an esitmate of $250 USD to replace an OEM grade ATX power supply (well above the posted price on their web site). I charged $80 including an Antec (not generic) PSU. I'm a way, I'm glad they do this: The more people they pi$$ off, the more customers I end up getting.

 

You are welcome gman853- as for crucials site, I find these tools can be well worth using-
gpurbpur
I knew it was nagging me, and I had to check around , but one problem- this model only takes 2gb (2 x 1gb sticks of ram, so if you are trying to use a single 2gb stick , it may well be causing problems-
I could only find this reference - a pdf file on the dv6000, and it does say 2 x 1gb as maximum ram.
If trying W7 try your old sticks of ram, as it will run on 1gb, reasonably.

http://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1010694294.pdf