The Laptop had been pronounced DEAD. But was it?
Occasionally I'm contacted for a 2nd opinion. A recent instance involved an almost 3 year old laptop that had suddenly refused to start up, had been taken to a "computer repair" business for diagnosis and the issue was determined to be "motherboard short, power subsystem appears dead". Fairly dire news for the owner.
Fortunately, a Computer Care client recommended (thank-you very much!) the owner get a 2nd opinion from me and gave the owner our contact information. The "patient" (as we sometimes refer to a computer entrusted to our care) at first displayed a reluctance to "boot up", but did start, freezing at the initial logo screen. This told me a couple of things: The power subsystem was not dead and that there was probably nothing wrong with the motherboard.
Hmmmm....what goes, then? Obviously, the initial diagnosis and verdict were totally incorrect. Makes me wonder what procedures were performed to arrive at a such a misdiagnosis. Who knows! What I did know is that the problem was probably what I would first suspect with a laptop that didn't want to boot, but also didn't give any signs that the hard drive had failed.
I started the laptop and entered the BIOS/CMOS set up. This confirmed for me that there was no "short" and allowed me to change what was displayed during the POST (Power On Self Test). By choosing a setting where the POST would show me what was going on, I could confirm that nothing unusual was occurring. Sure enough, the POST ran fine and then the system hung up. There were no strange noises coming from the laptop and no indication that the Operating System could not be found, so I felt confident that the Hard Drive was fine. So what was stopping the boot process?
This laptop had the ability to run diagnostics from the boot menu, so I ran a full suite and all tests ran successfully with no errors. This was very encouraging, but didn't explain why the system would not boot into the OS (Windows XP Home). I had my suspicions and felt confident that this laptop was going to be alright.
A short time later I was booting into WinXP and happy to see the Desktop come up on the screen. I checked the power settings on the laptop (right click on Desktop, choose properties, pick ScreenSaver tab, click Power button) and found the culprit causing the problem. The power settings allowed the laptop to go into "Standby" and as is sometimes the case, once in Standby, the laptop didn't want to wake up. This is why, with almost every machine I come in contact with, I turn "Standby" and "Hibernation" off. Whatever the reason, I don't believe risking your system not "waking up" is worth the convenience of either of these two options. If the owner of this laptop had not gotten a 2nd opinion, the laptop would have been replaced with another laptop needlessly.
The laptop owner was delighted to learn that the laptop was fine, all tuned up,latest updates installed and having probably another 2 -3 years useful life.
So, don't always take the 1st diagnosis to heart. Get a 2nd opinion
Fortunately, a Computer Care client recommended (thank-you very much!) the owner get a 2nd opinion from me and gave the owner our contact information. The "patient" (as we sometimes refer to a computer entrusted to our care) at first displayed a reluctance to "boot up", but did start, freezing at the initial logo screen. This told me a couple of things: The power subsystem was not dead and that there was probably nothing wrong with the motherboard.
Hmmmm....what goes, then? Obviously, the initial diagnosis and verdict were totally incorrect. Makes me wonder what procedures were performed to arrive at a such a misdiagnosis. Who knows! What I did know is that the problem was probably what I would first suspect with a laptop that didn't want to boot, but also didn't give any signs that the hard drive had failed.
I started the laptop and entered the BIOS/CMOS set up. This confirmed for me that there was no "short" and allowed me to change what was displayed during the POST (Power On Self Test). By choosing a setting where the POST would show me what was going on, I could confirm that nothing unusual was occurring. Sure enough, the POST ran fine and then the system hung up. There were no strange noises coming from the laptop and no indication that the Operating System could not be found, so I felt confident that the Hard Drive was fine. So what was stopping the boot process?
This laptop had the ability to run diagnostics from the boot menu, so I ran a full suite and all tests ran successfully with no errors. This was very encouraging, but didn't explain why the system would not boot into the OS (Windows XP Home). I had my suspicions and felt confident that this laptop was going to be alright.
A short time later I was booting into WinXP and happy to see the Desktop come up on the screen. I checked the power settings on the laptop (right click on Desktop, choose properties, pick ScreenSaver tab, click Power button) and found the culprit causing the problem. The power settings allowed the laptop to go into "Standby" and as is sometimes the case, once in Standby, the laptop didn't want to wake up. This is why, with almost every machine I come in contact with, I turn "Standby" and "Hibernation" off. Whatever the reason, I don't believe risking your system not "waking up" is worth the convenience of either of these two options. If the owner of this laptop had not gotten a 2nd opinion, the laptop would have been replaced with another laptop needlessly.
The laptop owner was delighted to learn that the laptop was fine, all tuned up,latest updates installed and having probably another 2 -3 years useful life.
So, don't always take the 1st diagnosis to heart. Get a 2nd opinion
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