Laptop won't startup/crashes after start up

PNGuzman · Joined: Nov 29, 2008 Posts: 4

I have been having problems with my Compaq Presario f500 for a couple of days now. It will (sometimes) boot up fine and stay on for a few minutes, or just long enough for me to start doing something on it, then it completely messes up and looks like this.

<<-- click to expand

It also refuses to start sometimes and will turn itself off after a second or so after I push the power button. Or it will get stuck in a loop and start up and shutdown after about a minute with out even trying to load anything.

At first I assumed it was my HDD/OS causing the problem but I decided to try to boot a knoppix dvd on it and after a little while the screen did the same thing. So now i believe it has to be a hardware problem maybe with the motherboard or graphics. Does anyone have any ideas about what is going on here?

Thanks

goretsky · Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 1:22 am Post subject:

Hello,

My initial thought is that the Compaq Presario F500 notebook's graphics card or CPU is overheating.

Have you tried disassembling and cleaning the notebook computer per Compaq's service manual?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

PNGuzman · Joined: Nov 29, 2008 Posts: 4

No I haven't yet. I wanted to be pretty sure of what it was before taking it apart. I should have some time later so I might try it then. Thanks for your reply.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

If that screen pattern were on a desktop computer, I'd say it's a Video Ram problem. That screen is a dead giveaway for a video ram failure.

I'd remove the ram, clean it, make sure the edge connector is clean and shiny and then reseat the ram.

If there was a discrete video card, I'd remove it, clean the ram chips on the card and then shine up the edge connector and replace the card.

On a laptop, I'd have to guess that there is no separate video ram,,,,,if there is, it's on the motherboard. As far as the system ram is concerned.....it's easy to remove , clean and replace.

By the way, are you running your PC on line power or battery power?

Good Luck,
The Doctor Cool

PNGuzman · Joined: Nov 29, 2008 Posts: 4

Well I took it completely apart today and inspected everything. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. At least nothing that's easily noticeable.

@drwho07: It's running on the AC adapter.

Is there a log that windows keeps that I could use to find out what is going on before a crash? If not, is there a program I could install that would do this? I'm running Vista Home Premium by the way.

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2636

goretsky · Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:36 am Post subject:

Hello,

Just to check, does the display error also occur if you plug in an external monitor?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

PNGuzman · Joined: Nov 29, 2008 Posts: 4