Hi all,

my laptop isnt posting, if i turn the laptop on it powers on but it is just a blank screen, if i try to turn it off it doesnt turn off and i have to take the battery out. What can i do to make the laptop boot?

Also could ram that had been plugged in while the laptop was on have done it?

thanks...

cool_dude

Uh, yeah, plugging RAM in while the unit is power is a definite no-no. Give me more info on make/model and I might be able to tell you how to reset it (there are some tricks with different notebooks to do this.)

I'm assuming that you've tried to power it back on with the afore-mentioned RAM removed...

It's pretty hard to determine what may or may not have been damaged if you installed components that are not hot-swappable while the system is running.

There is no way to determine exactly what is wrong without some real effort on your part.

I suggest starting by turning it off, and removing all the RAM, and seeing if it will post or at least beep at you. Some indication that the mobo is ok, and issolation the components one by one. Also, a mobo may boot up far enough to tell you that there is no CPU as well, if you remove that to check it out. But one thing at a time.

Start with the RAM, see how ithe machine acts without any RAM at all.

Then if you get some indication from the system that there is no RAM, you can then put each one in one at a time and test them.

If there is no change no matter what you do with the RAM, then try the CPU both with RAM, and without it.

That's the best I have to offer at the moment,.

You can also try installing your RAM one at a time in another compatable Laptop.

EDIT: Peng just posted and it looks like we are thinking along the same lines, but I would bet he is more knowledgable on laptops then I, so I will bow out and leave you to him and anyone else who has more experience with them

the laptop does the same thing as when there is/isnt any ram in there.

No beeps or nothing - there was never a beep (even when it was working)

heeelp!

I'm nowhere near a laptop expert, I was thinking that if a reset doesn't fix it, then to try icpiper's suggestions as they are more time consuming than a full reset would be, but the instructions are make/model specific and I only know how to do a few. The first thing to do is to see if there is a small hole on the underside that you can put a paperclip into (may be labeled 'reset') while holding it down, power on.

As it doesn't boot with the RAM removed, I'd try a reset, then pull the CPU if it still doesn't boot, if that doesn't do the trick, I'm forced to think the CMOS or BIOS chip is toast. It's really hard to tell without specifics.