"someone_else" wrote in
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"someone_else" wrote in
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Hi all,
I received a laptop to fix today .. It behaves like it is overheating but
I'm not sure.

When the power button is pressed the laptop fan whirs for about 2 seconds
and then nothing happens the screen is left blank, no further activity.

If I pull the power cable out, push it back in, then press the power
button the same thing happens,

However if I power down by holding the power button for 7 seconds
(leaving the power cable attached); the fan whirrs for 2 seconds as
before, but then the laptop appears to cut the power (as if it is
overheating) ... then 2 seconds later the fan whirrs on as if the laptop
is rebooting. Nothing appears on the screen ..

I did manage to boot as far as the windows logo by leaving the laptop in
a cold room for an hour and then trying.

So you see why it points to overheating .. but on the other hand when I
feel the heatsink with my finger it does not feel too hot at all! (I had
another laptop overheat, and it felt hot alright)

any ideas?

I should add I tried the laptop with the hard drive out, then with the
memory out, I also tested it with the battery and had the same results.
( I had to remove it when the laptop would not shut down during the
endless rebooting)

Could it be a problem with the GPU heatsink? (I've only been looking at
the CPU heatsink) I'm not sure where on this thing the GPU heatsink is.
(it's a Packard bell Easynote)

The other thing I considered .. maybe there's a voltage problem on some
component . but I don't know where to start looking ..

It's cooling down in this room now, I connected the power cable, press the
power button and again it's got a far as the windows logo screen and has
stopped, the logo screen is just sitting there, no activity. I add this to
my report only to speculate that if the CPU or the GPU were overheating
surely they would overheat even in this halted state. The CPU fan is not
even blowing. So I therefore don't believe the laptop is overheating at all.

any ideas?