my laptop won't boot up at all

[stevehoff424]

I have a T23 IBM Thinkpad Laptop with 512mb RAM and a 1.13ghz processor. just today(11-5-07), this morning, it was working fine. The most recent things i had downloaded were a few music files(.mp3) and i had installed updates with THinkvantage's System Update. (I had yet to reboot my computer for the changes to take effect.) i had Ares P2P program running so ppl could get programs that were on my computer (programs i specifically selected to share). Right b4 i locked my computer and closed the lid (i didn't put it in standby or anything) the RAM usage was about 260mb. My computer was still connected to the internet and on. i came back about an hour later (i was told no one had touched it) and opened the lid and the screen was completely black except for the top which was gray fading into white fading into grey again (i think). i tried pressing Esc, Ctrl + Alt + Delete, and just random buttons but nothing would get it off that screen. i tried holding down the power button but it would not turn off. I ended up having to unplug my laptop and take out the battery for it to go off. when i tried to start it, the screen stayed blank and didn't eve turn on and the internal fan sounded like it was turning on and then off over and over. I waited a few hours and tried to turn it on again and it booted up. i logged on and everything, but the moment that i closed the lid, it froze and went to that same all black screen with the grey-white-grey at the top. that time Ares was not running. i have not been able to get it to boot up again since. i pulled out the hard drive and plugged it into my bro's laptop as secondary drive to make sure my files were still good. i also scanned the last downloaded files with AVG Anti-spyware and didn't find anything. when i turn my computer on, it doesn't even get to the first screen. does anyone know of a solution or know what the problem is?

[bobbyraw]

you did say that it started a second time rihgt. trye starting in safe mode if you can, thenfollow the steps below. when u are done close the lid and see if the same thing happens. it might be the hibernation file is too large or currupted.

Go to Control Panel, select Performance and Maintenance, Power Options, Hibernate tab, and uncheck the Enable hibernation box. then restart the pc.

[Suspishio]

If I understood you correctly, you closed the lid for an hour with the PC ON, not in standby.

Could it have cooked itself and you're now suffering the consequences?

Maybe it only cooked the LCD screen and a monitor might behave differently. Tried that?

[Twistedprophet]

I will post back in a couple minutes. but i myself have a very similar thinkpad (army special) and i really dont think it could have cooked the screen. I will post back in a couple minutes with a link for the boot disc that I use but it is very useful (i use it on probably three or four laptops everyday.) It has a series of checks you can run on the entire computer (ram, hdd, display, etc.) but my wife needs me right now so i will post again in a minute.

[Twistedprophet]

Try booting with a boot disc like hirens boot disc and troubleshooting from there.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd is the link for the hirens boot disc if anyone doesnt have this disc i highly recommend it for anyone newbie or highly advanced professional geek. its free and if you work on one or a hundred computers (i maintain 138 at work) it is an invaluable resource. My recommendation would be to use hdd reanimator just to make sure that you have no corrupted sectors on your harddrive (perhaps a corrupted sector that holds a program that starts during startup?) and if all else fails it will let you boot win 98 off the disc and if it doesnt go crazy with the gray white screen after a while i would say your screen is fine. But anyways it is sure to be a great cd to add to your library and may just do the trick.
TP

[stevehoff424]

It started up once after that it has not started up at all. I've tried and tried but it just won't. I plugged in an external monitor and it did not detect any signal. Leaving my computer on isn't an abnormality, i usually have it playing music for a couple hours while i fall asleep until it automatically goes into standby. It will wake up again in the middle of the night and AVG Anti-spy ware and Spybot S&D will scan my computer. After that, it will go back into standby. leaving it on for about an hour should not have done anything. My theory is that when i shut my laptop lid the first time that it immediately froze since thats what it did when it started up the second time. i put some music on and closed the lid and the moment the screen would have gone off, the music just stopped. Dead. No sound what-so-ever. I opened my lid and that all black with the gray-white-gray top was on it. as for booting from a disk, it doesn't get far enough to boot from disk. it doesn't get anywhere at all. Twistedprophet, I looked at that website and it looks interesting but i can't find a download link for the disk. do you have to download all the files individually?

[Twistedprophet]

No thankfully you dont have to download the files individually. I didnt realize they didnt offer a download link on their site, I am contacting them to see if they would let me post their .iso on my site (as it is free) but you can download it from rapidshare (also free if you click the free download link) you just have to wait two or three minutes before your download will start. the address for that link is http://soft.softoogle.com/ap/hiren-s-bootcd-download-6916.shtml
I am also trying to contact them so that I can offer it as a direct download from my site.

[stevehoff424]

thanks for the link twistedprophet. unfortunatley, this does not solve my problem of not being able to start up my computer. there is normaly a screen that says:

IBM Thinkpad
Press F1 to enter Setup
Press F12 for Temporary boot Device <- (or something like that)

anyway, this screen would normally be the first one to come on and it is right before it would load the operating system. i would need to at least be able to get to it in order to boot from disk. My laptop doesn't get that far. i press the power button and the lights flash once and all of them (except the battery light and the light that tells you that its on) go off. there is absolutely nothing i can press to make it continue booting. there are no beeps or anything. Any ideas anyone?

[stevehoff424]

I think I found the problem. on this site:

http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic55332.html

it described a problem whose symptoms were the same as mine. then the person who originally started the thread said that after hours of experimenting with his T23, he finally found the problem and fixed it. The problem was a magnet piece on the bottom of the MOBO (motherboard) which had become unsoddered. i looked on the bottom of my MOBO and sure enough, that same exact piece was just hanging there by one side. I'm hoping that by soddering it back on it will fix my problem. i will try to do that as soon as i get my hands on a soddering gun (hopefully by nxt week). I will post back with the results as soon as i can. thanks to all of you who have posted on this thread and spend your time trying to help me thru this issue. you've helped me a lot.

[stevehoff424]

yep, that's what the problem was alright. I fixed the piece on the motherboard and now it works fine again. thanks again for advice!

[Antonyfromes]

I got a real problem with my laptop, I was working on it when saddenlly it turnet off, when I try to turned on it starts but after a couple secend appeard a scream and it s say wait but the sceam turned white and it does`t go on.
what can I do.
any help please.

[07knev]

Remove the updated thinkvantage software, should solve your problem

[berks90]

can anyone help me when im trying to install my window 7 it stock in start up setting what should i do thx?