Gateway Laptop Won't Turn On At All - Dead!

[orphanarium]

I've looked through older posts and my story is pretty similar. I was just using my laptop last night. I closed the laptop. This morning, when I tried to turn it on, it wouldn't turn on. The power button wouldn't even light up. I noticed that that the laptop feels pretty cold - so I think it's the battery.

So I unplugged the laptop, plugged it into another outlet. And nothing happened. Finally, I unplugged the laptop, removed the battery, put it back in, plugged the laptop in and turnned it on again and the charging light light up purple. It was only purple for a couple of moments and turnned blue.

The second I press the power button on, the charging light will go out completely and I have to go through the above process to get the charging light turnned on again. If I just unplug and replug, the light charging light won't turn on again.

[BlackJavaBean]

What model Gateway is the machine? On some models, the system will work fine if the battery is dead/not-installed as long it is connected to power through the A/C adapter.

[UrbanKhoja]

Good Evening and welcome to Daniweb!

Have you tried an ATX reset by any chance? As that will usually solve most power related issues.

Dazza :cool:

[orphanarium]

Good Evening and welcome to Daniweb!

Have you tried an ATX reset by any chance? As that will usually solve most power related issues.

Dazza :cool:

What's an ATX reset and how do you do that?

[Techie08]

Did you find a solution to this?

[plente]

Have you tried an ATX reset by any chance? As that will usually solve most power related issues.

Dazza :cool:

Thankx! You da man. That seems to have fixed my problem from another thread. ATX reset. Who knew? :-O

[plente]

Thankx! You da man. That seems to have fixed my problem from another thread. ATX reset. Who knew? :-O

Grrrr. spoke too soon. MAchine booted normally a couple of times, then did the same thing again.

[Techie08]

What's an atx reset and how do i do that?

[planethurf]

What's an atx reset and how do i do that?

ATX Reset explained - and shamelessly stolen from Packard Bell's website! :$

Instructions for Performing the Power Discharge Procedure (ATX Reset)

Information:
Your computer or monitor has no power at all or cannot boot properly. In some situations this can be caused by an external device or an electrical problem. This can usually be solved by removing all external devices and resetting the power supply.

Instructions for desktops:

1. Disconnect all external devices you have, including the keyboard and the mouse.
2. Unplug the power cord.
3. Press the power button and hold it for at least 15 seconds.
4. Reconnect the power cord. If your computer is a desktop, please make sure the wall socket you are using is grounded.
Do not yet reconnect the external devices, they should stay disconnected.
5. Switch on your computer and test if it boots normally.

Instructions for notebooks:

1. Disconnect all external devices you have.
2. Unplug the power adapter from the notebook.
3. Remove the battery from the notebook (if possible).
4. Press the power button and hold it for at least 15 seconds.
5. Reconnect the power adapter.
Do not yet reconnect the external devices, they should stay disconnected. Do not yet reseat the battery.
6. Switch your computer on and test if it boots normally and watch if the power LED lights up.
7. If the power LED still does not lights up, continue with the next steps.
8. Disconnect the power adapter from the notebook.
9. Press the power button and hold it for at least 15 seconds.
10. Reseat the battery. Do not reconnect the power adapter.
11. Switch your computer on and test if it boots normally.

Instructions for monitors:

1. Disconnect the monitor from the computer
2. Unplug the power cord.
3. Press the power button and hold it for at least 15 seconds.
4. Reconnect the power cord and connect the monitor to the computer. Please make sure the wall socket you are using is grounded.
5. Switch on the monitor and check if monitor works fine again.

[Techie08]

awesome thanks a ton, i will try it tonight and let you know!

[UrbanKhoja]

awesome thanks a ton, i will try it tonight and let you know!

Evening,

What is the issue that you're currently having? As an ATX reset is only really used to trouble shoot power issues.

Dazza :cool:

[dbuelke]

My Gateway 520 died while in use. The power adapter's voltage checked out OK and the power jack had no signs of damage. After a half hour powering down and cooling, it still showed no sign of life. I applied the ATX reset and it booted fine with the battery out. Since I mainly use this as a desktop and batteries for this unit are expensive and have a short use time even when new, I elected to leave the battery out. That raised the question: Could this problem actually be related to the battery itself losing conductivity if I was only using it with the power adapter anyway?

What does the ATX reset actually do?

[joeatty]

I've looked through older posts and my story is pretty similar. I was just using my laptop last night. I closed the laptop. This morning, when I tried to turn it on, it wouldn't turn on. The power button wouldn't even light up. I noticed that that the laptop feels pretty cold - so I think it's the battery.

So I unplugged the laptop, plugged it into another outlet. And nothing happened. Finally, I unplugged the laptop, removed the battery, put it back in, plugged the laptop in and turnned it on again and the charging light light up purple. It was only purple for a couple of moments and turnned blue.

The second I press the power button on, the charging light will go out completely and I have to go through the above process to get the charging light turnned on again. If I just unplug and replug, the light charging light won't turn on again.

I had the same problem with my Gateway. I always leave my laptop on 24/7. Woke up and it was dead. Had it sitting on the carpet so I thought it may have overheated. Tried eveything to fix it. Bought a new laptop and began taking the gateway apart. Took out the ram and it worked fine. I had upgraded the ram. So what had happended was the ram chips failed. Before you dump your laptop, try replacing the ram chip(s). That could be the problem.

[Techie08]

tried it, didn't work for mine! Nothing happened :(

[FrancisAka]

Model mt6451
dead could not turn on..nothing is happening..how do I approach this. what is wrong with it. do anyone know.

[rwgallegos]

i tried this on my gateway laptop and it still won't turn on. holding down the power button gets me 4 red light flashes but no boot up. thought it was the connection on the computer for the power cord and had it replaced. but now nothing!

[RAGGEDJEAN5]

I have tried the 15 second trial with main power supply with no luck and I have tried the 15 second trial with reseating the battery. Gateway laptop model 6708 still dead. help!!!

[PimpFinger]

I recently had this same problem with my mt6451. The wire in the AC charger went bad and the laptop ran the battery dead overnight. After fixing the wiring on the AC adapter and plugging in, all I got was 4 blinks of red on the battery light.

This is what worked for me. I will in no way be responsible if you should cause further damage to your PC.

The way I fixed it:

1. Disconnect all sources of power.
a. Main battery on bottom of laptop.
b. AC adapter
c. CMOS battery (it's not that tough to get to. Here's the manual.)

http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Q106/Oasis/8511725_Service.pdf

2. Hold down the power button for a solid minute.

3. Reconnect the CMOS battery.

4. Insert the battery.

5. Plug in the power cord.

6. Look for the purple light on the front (it should stay solid purple. If it blinks on and goes off, wiggle the AC connection on the computer until it goes to solid purple.)

7. Leave it alone for a while.

8. After an hour or so of charging press the power button. You'll probably get an error screen telling you that the previous cmos settings failed or something like that. It's because the cmos was cleared when you removed the battery. Just reboot and you should be golden.

After completing those steps I was back in business. Hope it works for you too! Any questions just ask.

[adamareid]

I had a problem with my Gateway Laptop this morning. The machine would power on, the system fans were spinning, the CDROM drive turned on (lights turned on), but the Hard Drive Activity light (looks like a tin-can symbol) was showing no Hard Drive activity. Nothing happened. I assumed my HD was dead. Needless to say, I was pretty angry.

I removed the HD by removing the screw on the bottom of the machine, near the front. When I took out the HD, there was a significant amount of dust inside. I blew out all the dust and cleaned the HD and try to boot without it. Thankfully, it went to the boot menu and threw an error because the HD was missing.

I re-inserted the cleaned HD and tried to re-boot. Success! So, I'm hoping it was just a dust buildup on the HD that caused the problem. Try buying some compressed air and cleaning your machine out. You'd be surprised how much dust can accumulate.

Hope this helps.

[hanks55]

I did that with my gateway m675prr and it made no change. The conputer will not trun on like it has no power, However the power light came on for one second with pushing the power on button. I then pushed the power button a second time it the power light button light would not come on a second time using the battery or ac power.
Could the power problem be in the motherbroad