Member Avatar for tux4life

Well, I have a very strange problem with my laptop: sometimes it wants to boot and sometimes it doesn't want to boot.
First of all, I want to specify what I mean with doesn't want to boot:
If I press the power button of my laptop, then the LEDs of my wireless network card and battery are on, however, the three lights on top of my keyboard (indicating CAPS-LOCK, NUM-LOCK, etc...) don't light up.
I've already removed the Hard disk, but with no success, so the problem isn't related to my harddrive, I also tried replacing it by another one, but again: no success.
Now I'm thinking that it's probably the RAM memory, or do you have any other ideas?

Recently I could get it booted, (when it wants to boot, the LEDs of my keyboard are on, otherwise not, when it doesn't boot, the display doesn't work as well and I'm not receiving any beeps from my laptop): I booted my laptop from an Ubuntu Live-CD, well it booted, I could move the mouse and enter things on my keyboard, but after a while it seems like everything is frozen (moving the mouse doesn't work, the keyboard doesn't work anymore, external USB-mouse doesn't work as well, I didn't face this problem only on this live-cd, I only had it in the beginning (when the problem begun), when the harddisk was still in my laptop and when Windows was booting fine, it just hung at the login screen, after restarting it I could login, but it just restarted, and from then it just refuses to boot.

The model of my laptop is: Compaq nc8000
Amount of RAM in it: 1GB (2x 512MB)

If you've any more questions, then feel free to ask :)

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by SHENGTON

Dani AI

Generated

Intermittent power/POST problems like this are most often hardware-related (power rails, motherboard/BIOS, or a flaky component) rather than an OS bug. ’s list of possible culprits and ’s suggestion to test RAM are on the right track, and ’s similar freeze narrows the field toward either a failing subsystem (video/power) or an unstable board. A short, methodical hardware-first triage will find the root faster than random component swaps.

Start with a minimal-hardware checklist and work outward:

  1. Power: test with a known-good AC adapter and try powering with battery removed. Inspect the DC jack for looseness.
  2. Peripherals: remove HDD/optical/wireless cards and any PCMCIA/USB devices; try POST with only CPU, one RAM stick, and display.
  3. Memory: reseat modules and test one stick at a time in each slot; run memtest (multiple full passes).
  4. CMOS: remove the coin-cell backup for a few minutes to clear BIOS settings, then retry.
  5. Visual inspection: look for bulging/leaking capacitors, scorch marks, or loose connectors around the power circuitry.
  6. Graphics/freeze isolation: when a Live environment boots then freezes, try safe/compatibility graphics (e.g. boot with nomodeset) or connect an external monitor to check GPU behavior.
  7. BIOS: only update if the vendor explicitly fixes similar boot issues and a stable power source is available for flashing.

Collect logs during successful boots for diagnostics:

dmesg -T | sudo tee /tmp/dmesg-boot.txt
sudo cp /var/log/syslog /tmp/syslog-boot.txt   # older systems
sudo journalctl -b -1 --no-pager > /tmp/previous-boot-journal.txt  # systemd systems

If the machine shows no POST indicators (no keyboard LEDs/beeps) after the above, the logic board or power-regulation circuitry is increasingly likely; document the tests and consider board-level repair or replacement. Use ESD precautions when handling parts and avoid BIOS flashes on an unstable system.

Member Avatar for tux4life

I ran a memory test (memtest86) on my RAM, and it didn't give errors.
Maybe the problem is the CPU then (though, after one day staying powered on and being used (when the pc can boot up, you can reboot without any problems, but when you turn off the pc, it doesn't boot up anymore) intensively the CPU isn't very warm/hot at all) ?

Member Avatar for ajay999

my laptop is not booted is due to hard disk drive, cmos or mother board problem or cd rom problem regards
ajay
9927065789

Member Avatar for roezer

I am Having a Similar Problem I am Also running Ubuntu but 9.04. I find that my screen will freeze I can't move my mouse or escape to Terminal so I just Disconnect the Power and Battery then when I turn it back on the fan goes wild and it won't boot but then it will boot normally later

Edited by roezer because: n/a
Member Avatar for SHENGTON

Hello tux4life, good evening. :)

Got some questions:
1. Have you tried removing the other RAM and just running with single RAM? Any observations that you notice?

Maybe by removing and testing the two RAMs (one by one) in your laptop would be the best way to know it if the memories are the culprit.

2. Have you tried replacing the laptop battery? Any observations that you notice?

Replacing the laptop battery would help as well to determine whether it is culprit or not.

Take care and God bless. :)

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