[howtheflip]

Hello all, I recently purchased this laptop on ebay. When looking at the listing, it was only 400 dollars when others are 900 and described as used but functional. Now that i've received it, I tried to power it on. Immediately the fan starts to spin, which lets me know that it's running, but no image displays... I tried to put it on an external monitor and still no image. Does anyone know what the likely problem is? I am planning on talking to the guy I bought it from to see if he has any knowledge of it and if it's not something minor, i have the full intention of returning it.

EDIT: I just tried removing the hard drive and ram to see what it did when powered on, and it didn't even make beeping noises to represent errors. just thought i'd post that to see if that would happen at all.

Edited by howtheflip, 04 December 2012 - 01:14 PM.

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Hello howtheflip

Have you tried a hard reset by removing the battery and AC adaptor and then pressing the power button down for 30 seconds.

The lack of error beeps does not bode well though.

[phillpower2]

Hello howtheflip

Have you tried a hard reset by removing the battery and AC adaptor and then pressing the power button down for 30 seconds.

The lack of error beeps does not bode well though.

[howtheflip]

Yeah, i was gonna add that too my tests too, that didn't do anything either. I tried reseating the ram in every possible manner and that didnt help either.

Edited by howtheflip, 04 December 2012 - 02:27 PM.

[phillpower2]

I hope not but it appears that the notebook is a rather expensive doorstop

Did the seller have a good feedback rating, I suggest that you contact them asap and inform them that you require a refund as the longer that you leave it the more that they have grounds to dispute that the notebook was working when it was dispatched.

At less than half of the cost that others were selling for personally I feel that you may have been duped.

[howtheflip]

Yeah, I messaged him and he said that it was working before he sent it, which sounds highly unlikely that something would go wrong with it on the travel over. The only possibility would be a loose cable in the screen or something, but then wouldn't it still work on an external monitor? which leads me to believe that it's either the motherboard or graphics card. It's just frustrating to have to send it back after waiting so long for it then having to pay the shipping again on top of that, which is a time and money loss overall. I'll give it one more day of good looking at and if not it's going right back to him.

P.S. When I did message him, his response was to "try ctrl alt del," which i got a strange chuckle out of.

EDIT: The keyboard does have a backlight and i am able to control it with the fn controls; could that be a positive sign of fixing the screen?

Edited by howtheflip, 04 December 2012 - 09:36 PM.

[phillpower2]

Have you tried tapping the F2 key when the notebook is attempting to boot up.

MB, GPU, CPU are possible causes, if one was likely to get damaged in shipping the MB would be the most likely casualty, however as the MB is getting power to it and the cooling fan is running I suspect that the issue is with the video chip, if the MB was bad you would get nothing and CPUs rarely fail unless they overheat which seems unlikely (but not impossible) due to the cooling fan still working.

Purchasing goods on ebay is a gamble sometimes I`m afraid as you rely on peoples honesty, I would return the notebook asap because if you open up the notebook you risk the seller claiming that you have damaged it.

[howtheflip]

Well, I don't think i've tried just pressing f2, but i've run my fingers across every button at some point so i think it should have work. And are there any tests i can perform to see if it is the graphics card? If not, I'm just going to send it back and be incredibly mad if he tries anything. I opted out of spending about 600 for the g73 because this seemed decent enough for what i wanted and saved me the money, but now it would be better to just return it instead of investing more in this and having spent as much as i would for a better model. so frustrating.

[phillpower2]

Tapping F2 while the notebook is starting up is how you would normally access the BIOS, this is when the computer is using the least amount of system resources as the BIOS chip provides what it needs to check that your MB, CPU, Ram, GPU, HDD and keyboard are working correctly, importantly the BIOS chip does not require system drivers to produce the BIOS screen it uses the information stored on it.

In a nutshell if you cannot access the BIOS the issue is normally terminal.

Just a FYI and I am not saying what I describe is what has happened but a failed BIOS chip would result in the same scenario as you have now and common causes of such failures are due to a bad BIOS flash and overclocking too far.

[howtheflip]

Yeah f2 did not help prompt the BIOS, and anything else that I would perform to the laptop would void any normal warranty, so I do not want to continue any further so that he will not use that in his argument. I already opened a case with Ebay, considering that he had the item listed as no returns (how convenient it breaks after he sends it and doesn't accept returns), so hopefully it goes well. thanks for your help anyway.

[phillpower2]

You are welcome and I hope that the issue is resolved to your satisfaction, good luck.

[howtheflip]

Sorry to continue to post on what looked like a dead thread, but I got the seller to give me some information about the item and if this could happen, I would rather not send the item back and just fix it.

He said that the laptop used to occasionally fail to start up before, but that when he installed the new operating system, it seemed to fix up the issue and that it was working the day before he sent the laptop. I think I believe him, so my question now is if that information could help locate the source of the problem?

[phillpower2]

No worries as we are here to help if we can.

Two very important factors here 1: If the seller had been honest and disclosed that the notebook had this issue would you have purchased the item. 2: The seller is talking through their hat as without even being able to access the BIOS how can you set the boot sequence to the DVD/CD drive first and the HDD second - something that 100% needs to be done to be able to install an OS.

Certain information from your reply #5 had me doubting the integrity of the seller and I suspect that you felt the same;
P.S. When I did message him, his response was to "try ctrl alt del," which i got a strange chuckle out of.

The seller has mislead yourself and others when advertising the notebook for sale and so without further ado I suggest that you insist on a full refund as what you have purchased is not fit for the intended purpose.

[howtheflip]

Okay, so last night I randomly decided to try it, and after about 30 seconds of being on, the operating system started to boot. Shocked, I continued on to see how everything ran. There indeed was a fresh OS on it, and everything was running fine. After about 30 minutes, however, the laptop randomly reset. The fan is rather loud and blows out very hot air. I tried to power it on this morning, and it took 30 seconds or so like the previous time. So, I have two assumptions, and if I could be given any guidance, that would be great:

It may be that the fan/cpu/gpu have not been properly cleaned and given new thermal paste, and so the laptop is forcefully shutting down because it is getting too hot.

If I am unfortunate, this heat has caused damage to the motherboard that is going to cause it to be permanent.


So, now my question is if there is any advice that would help point me in the right direction to find out which one of these it could be? I was planning on cleaning the fan and putting new thermal paste on today and seeing how well it ran. If this doesn't help, would that inform me that it is probably the motherboard that is wrong?

I'd rather not have a huge ordeal if I can just fix the laptop, and the seller said that he could refund me some money if I need to purchase a new piece, so that may be better than trying to get a refund and buying another one.


EDIT: I just cleaned the fan out and put new thermal paste on the processor, and the air is much cooler now. I powered on the laptop, but after a half hour, it froze this time instead of shutting off. Now that I booted it back up, it started checking file system on C: and says "the type of the file system is NTFS, One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency."

Any idea what this means?

DOUBLE EDIT: So the laptop has not overheated or frozen since that one incident. The only thing that is still happening is taking multiple attempts to post and the computer still seems rather slow and laggy for some reason. I'd usually assume the speed is related to the processor, and cleaning the heating and thermal paste would make it be able to function, but damage has already been done which is why it is somewhat slow. but I'm not sure. Can a professional please point me in the right direction so I can finally end this problem? Thank you so much in advance

Edited by howtheflip, 07 December 2012 - 08:13 PM.

[phillpower2]

I admire your determination and well done for getting to where you are up to with the notebook.

Before reading the edits that you have added to your last reply I suspected a bad solder joint on the MB as that can cause similar start up and random shutdowns, what happens in that instance is when the MB is cold the solder joint is together but when the MB gets hot the solder joints expand and so the circuit is broken.

Couple of tests for you to do if the notebook will stay on;

Run the HDDs diagnostics tool, Please note that the testing is designed to stress test the HDD and a faulty HDD may fail completely during testing.

Make sure you select the tool that is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Depending on the program it'll create a bootable floppy or a bootable CD.
If the downloaded file is the .iso type use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option) and make the CD bootable.

Run a quick memory test http://windows.micro...n-your-computer depending on the results you may need to run the more comprehensive memtest86+

[howtheflip]

Okay, well this morning I am currently back at square 1 because the machine doesn't seem to want to respond. I had several extensive hours on it smoothly, checking drivers and installing updates and such, and it was working almost flawlessly by the end of the night. Now, it won't boot at all, even after multiple attempts for about 20 minutes now. I'm trying to expand my assumptions, and currently am looking at a specific light on the system:

Whenever I power on the computer, this cylinder shape light on the power strip lights up. After several seconds, however, the light shuts off, and then occasionally flickers back on but never stays solid again. After a bit of flickering, it just stays off. At first I was assuming this light is the battery. The part that confuses me however is that the laptop doesn't start with a battery plugged in or an external power source. I've read about CMOS batteries in laptop that can cause this problem-- could this button be to show that? Also, when first starting up the computer, I remember that the clock was several hours off, even though it was in the correct time zone with daylight savings correctly updated. I've heard that inability to keep track of the time also points to that.

If i can just start it up again, I'll be glad to run those tests, but for now my only option is to think of other causes that I can attempt right now. Thanks in advance again.

EDIT: Just looked into the meaning of these lights, and determined that it is an HDD light, now I just need to determine if that light is supposed to be solid, and if it is it is almost definitely an HDD problem.

REEDIT: After looking at other laptops through reviews, it appears that theres occasionally blinks as well for theirs. That makes me feel a little bit better, but the fact that mine stops completely has me slightly worried. The only time it becomes solid again is when i hold the power button to shut it off. If i can get on to run the test today that will be the first area I check.


Another thing to note is that last night I put it into sleep mode, I did not shut it down. It still fails to exit any hibernation or sleep mode correctly though, with the screen remaining black. I don't know if this detail helps but I don't want to overlook anything

Edited by howtheflip, 08 December 2012 - 10:09 AM.