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Two incidents: Last night, I had my HP Pavilion dv9620us notebook PC running, and was using both Microsoft Word (with a few windows open) and Internet Explorer. (I'm running Windows Vista.) I went away for a little while, and when I came back, the screen was dark, as it should have been to save either power or the display (I don't know which). But its power light was flashing (blue, if it matters--that's its usual color), and when I pressed the power button, which usually makes it shut down or start up, nothing happened. I tried pressing, pressing and holding it down, pressing and holding it down for quite a while--nothing happened. It was as though it were frozen, apart from the blinking light. Eventually I got up to look up the problem on our other computer, lost lots of time trying to guess the password because my nephew had uncharacteristically gone to bed early, then returned and half-heartedly pressed the power button again, holding it down--and the computer magically started up again. Then today (the next day), the same thing happened, only this time it did start up after only a few pressing-the-power-button tries--again when I held it down. Three questions: (a) What does this mean (what is the problem)? (b) What can I do to make sure it starts up if this happens again? (c) How, in language that my mother could understand, can I fix this problem?

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Dani AI

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Short practical guide (builds on 's suggestion and 's follow-up). Since System Restore already failed, try these safe, ordered checks to isolate the cause and get the laptop reliably starting again.

  1. Hard power reset (simple, often fixes a "frozen" power state): unplug the AC adapter, remove the battery if it is removable, press and hold the power button for 15–30 seconds, then reconnect power (try AC only first) and switch on. If the battery is internal, hold the power button 30–60 seconds instead.
  2. Narrow the power source: try booting with AC only, then with battery only. If it only fails on battery or only on AC, the adapter or battery is suspect.
  3. If Windows boots, check Event Viewer for errors logged at the time the machine froze, then try System Restore again from Safe Mode (restart, press F8 before Windows loads). If you cannot boot normally, use the Vista recovery options or the OEM recovery partition to run Startup Repair.
  4. Run basic integrity checks: chkdsk /f (disk errors) and sfc /scannow (system file corruption). Also run memory and disk diagnostics (Memtest86+ for RAM; the disk maker's SMART tool for the drive).

If problems persist: update the laptop's chipset, graphics drivers and the BIOS/firmware from HP only for your exact model, and re-run the tests. Repeated unexplained freezes or blinking often means failing hardware (battery, adapter, or motherboard) — back up important files and consider professional repair.

Plain explanation to give your mother: "The laptop fell asleep and its power controls got stuck. Try unplugging it, pulling the battery, holding the power button down for a few seconds, then plugging it back in. If that fixes it, keep an eye on it and back up files; if it happens again, it may need a new battery or service."

Member Avatar for Donk

Well, the first thing to try would be use Vista's System Restore to go back to a date previous to when the problem started. Could be that an auto-update to windows or a program has caused the problem, and System Restore will undo that update without harming any of your data or settings.
Click the Start button, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore.
Just follow the prompts to find a date previous to last night and follow the instructions to do the restore.
If that doesn't fix it, you might want to look at the system log to see what (if any) updates were recently installed that might have caused the problem.
Donk

Member Avatar for MindWalk

Hi, Donk. I tried System Restore, twice, with two different restore points, but it failed both times. (Everything seemed to work until my laptop had shut down and started back up and I had logged in again, at which point I got a message saying that System Restore had failed to complete and suggesting that I might want to try again, perhaps with a different restore point.) Should I worry about that?

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