laptop - no POST, no nuthin

I'm using a Gateway 7330GZ.

I downloaded and installed Visual Studio SP1 earlier today, then put it into hibernation. I went to start it up a few hours later, and it wouldn't POST. No lights except the AC power light, just read the CD drive and stayed at a black screen. Nothing came up. Once in a while the Caps Lock and Num Lock (or HDD, can't remember) lights will blink once like normal, then POST, then do the Windows logo loading thing, then make these weird thick vertical bars and not do anything else. Sometimes it'll partially boot when I take the battery out and just run on AC adapter, and sometimes when I have the CD tray ejected. Maybe that's just superstition.

Wouldn't it shut down if it was overheating? I left it off for a few hours before trying again, and now no lights blink (AC light is on like normal) and it just stays at a black screen. I've heard about PSUs and CPUs burning out, and I really hope this isn't the case. I reinserted the hard drive, took out (then later reinserted) the extra RAM I put in long before, still nothing. I don't know how to test the hard drive because I don't know of any other compatible laptops to try with. The fans don't seem to be working as hard as they usually do, but then again they tend to get louder as it boots anyway so I don't know if that's an issue. I really don't know what to try at this point.

Any help would be awesome, as it's my main homework machine.

Thanks!

 

You and I are in the same gutter friend

 

If you have a spare monitor connect it to your laptop. Connect the power supply to the laptop and switch it all on, not forgetting to use FN and the F2 or F3 (which ever it is) Function Key to enable an external display. If your not sure how, check the manual it should tell you how to connect an external monitor and get it working.

If you get an image on the monitor then it’s safe to say you might have a problem with on board display possibly the inverter if you have blocks on screen like you said. If so take in for repair, best bet is the manufacturer or a shop/store you trust.

Good Luck!

 

On mine it's F4 (the one with the two mini-screens).
What's weird is that it displays the Gateway logo thing and the Windows logo loading screen fine, but after that it's the vertical block things.
I just got the lid and mini display circuit board thingy replaced a month ago because my screen was flickering and sometimes blacking out for split seconds, and I had to swing the lid until it stopped.
By "power supply" do you mean the AC adapter? I was going to use it anyway because I rarely run on battery.

I'll try this tomorrow (er, later today), thanks!

 

The standard way to restart a laptop pc stuck in hibernation is to remove the battery, count to 100 slowly, replace the battery.

 

I didn't count, but I tried taking the battery out for about ten minutes. I think it was a temporary fix before it started acting weird again.

Well, as I figured the display was fine. I popped in the XP installation disc and did a fixboot and chkdsk /r in the Recovery Console, and everything seems to be back to normal. I had done this before, but it froze at the first line with the blue screen ("press F6 if you have to manually install SATA drivers" or something).

According to the Event Viewer I got all sorts of weird errors (dhcp, IPNATHLP, MrxSmb, and ialm). The ialm error seems to make sense ("driver ialmrnt5 for display device got stuck in an infinite loop"). Maybe I have to start reinstalling drivers.

 

If you have underlying problems disable hibernation to clear the hibernation file. A corrupt hiberfil.sys can cause loadsa probs.
Run without for a while to see if that helps.
Hibernation is not an exact science (perhaps that should be my new sig?)

http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/hiberfil-sys-xp.html