I don't think it has to do w/ the power source. Mine has been failing to boot up a lot lately, and to make matters worse, I have a short in the ac adapter (so have a new one on the way in the mail), so like this morning after it crashing last night, it booted up off the batter.

What I have been doing, and I really don't suggest this, is I have been dropping it from 2-3 feet onto the ground and it starts back up...after I buy a new one, I am sending this one to the shop, and I will let you all know what they say.

:mrgreen: MAN DONT!! DROP!! IT!!!(lol) I fix a ton of these. The problem you are having is common.. Its most likely getting ready to have a board short issue. (does your adapter LED blink)? If so call us be4 dropping again.. Your going to turn your hard drive into a paperweight.. (and maybe the rest of it).. If your Adapter is shorting out.. Blinking.. Trust me buying a new one will aggrivate matters and make it happen sooner. These have a bad hot-spot in the primary input circuit that will eventually render it inop. If you want help getting it fixed before this happens, and you HAVE to replace the motherboard. Give me a buzz, email, or phone call. I do 5-10 of these a month and I know these things inside and out. I have 40 trashed board's on the shelf where people let them go too far, Some have a hole in them the size of a dime.. Literally. This problem can be fixed! Trust me.. (Were the cheapest around, And people always give us referral's) look at our web@ http://home.mchsi.com/~ikenfixit/ We can "fixit" for you or help you do it.. I-Ken-fixit

Posting a link to your own or any other repair service isn't really a helpful thing to do. Members here come from places all around the globe, not just in your own area. This is a self-help forum, so only those answers which tell people how to fix the problems themselves are really useful. If anyone wants to include a plug for their own repair service in their answer, it would be more helpful to use it in the form:

"If you live near ......... you might like to drop in and see me at........"


That all said, I'd have to agree with ikenfixit that changing a laptop motherboard is not a job for the fainthearted or inexperienced. Unless you are a person with a particular affinity for dasmantling (and successfully reassembling) electronic components, then don't take the job on yourself!

Apologies for the Ad looking post.. Actually the 700 series is one of the easier to dismantle, I was trying to state that if you are a "Do it yourself" type of person we will also help in that aspect.. Gotta love these compaqs, If it wasnt for their high failure rate? I'd be working at McDonalds.?. (NOT).. Anyway I'll refrain from posting ads that look like a sales pitch! Thanx again All, And good luck on the 700's! Ken

I got just got this laptop and it's working fine as I know. But the only problem is, when I run the laptop off a ac adapter, the fan is always running. But when I unplugged the ac adapter running from battery, the fan stopped. So is this the battery problem or the laptop is messed up? Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thank you all for your help. I, too, had a presario 700 that stopped working. When I tried to turn it on, I would hear a single "click" and see a green light. Other than that, it was totally unresponsive. No display or anything. After taking it to numerous repair stores all over town to have it worked on, nobody could figure out the problem or fix it. So here is what I did. I removed the strip of buttons & keyboard. This revealed the silver piece of sheet metal with the heat sink on the underside. I removed it & disconnected the fan cable. There was some corrosion on the processor chip & heat sink which I carefully scrapped off with a tiny flat head screwdriver. There was also a thin square "foil like" heat transfer material that I removed and trashed. I cleaned both the heat sink & the processor chip with alcohol. Then I applied Arctic Silver 5 according to the instructions (see www.arcticsilver.com). Re-assembled everything and. . . BAM! It works better than ever! I am not at all a "techie" kind of person. I have no experience with computer repairs. But this was EASY. Thanks again to all of you for your help.

Got it figured out. Call me at 323-788-4095.

Rich

Rich. The rails shorting out are one of Many problems that plague the 700's. Is yours still running fine? Hopefully so. Let people know if weve helped you please! (Repaired his 700 a couple months ago) If you need to learn more just buzz us I'll help you anytime. Ken

My Presario 700Z would not start at all. No power to the switch, although I had the AC adapter light and the Battery charge light the stupid thing would not turn on.
After the painful IM with tech support I was searching to see I any one had the same issue.
I did just what Comcrap has stated...
I removed the CMOS battery put the thing together and issue resolved.

Thanks for all the help....

Hi, My Presario 700 was working last night just fine running all the windows updates and everything. I had never ha a problem with it before. I went to go boot it up today and got nothing, no fan, just a green light and the battery light blinked. The battery had been crap since 2002 anyway and was just there for it's good looks, but today , I couldn't get any kind of a response from this computer whatsover. It has been one of my most reliable pieces of equipment and right now I am not financial able to buy a new laptop. I have built multiple desktops and those are huge lean mean running machines but the laptop thing is all new to me. One thing I noticed was a smell of something "burned" inside the machine. It smelled like burned dust. Anyway I got it apart. I am so thankful to who ever posted the instruction with pictures! That made all the difference in the world.
I have decided if any part of this thing is cooked, I am going to replace it with stuff on ebay. But how do I know what is wrong with it? One of the hardest things to diagnose could be the memory, but often times it's the easiest thing to fix. But how do I know for certain? I am on a very limited income and without this machine being in operation my work as a DJ is going to go right down the drain. I have here a tube of silicone based heat sink compound of which I use on all my AMD chips in my desktops. When I cracked this laptop open I found that it might need a little dab of this stuff right smack in the middle of it. I bought this at Radio Shack. I figure a squirt of this stuff can't hurt, but how would I know what pice is malfunctioning? Is it the memory, the processor, the hard drive? I yanked the hard drive out and it got me wondering why my 20 GB hard drives in my desktops were not that small?
Anyway, I know that I can fix this poor laptop, I have the talent and capability to do it, but what I don't have is the knowledge of being able to diagnose this.
From reading this thread, it seems I am just joining the club, so to speak. OK, Design flaw, I accept that but this has been an incredibly reliable machine since I bought it in 2001. Please help keep me advised on the status, if anyone knows anything I might have a question about, please let me know. I'm like the Borg from Star Trek, I'll adapt. I can fix these things.
So what do you think? Is it common for the fan to just quit? Or the motherboard to go bad? What are the probabilities of each of these things individually crapping on me? My chip seemed to be securely mounted into the board, should I pop it out put a dab of the compound on it's top and stick it back in there? The compound helps disperse heat and the less an AMD chip has the better. The chip is a AMD Duron 1.3 ghz. I have never had any problems whatsoever with this machine until this morning.
Anyone? Anyone?