Member Avatar for bornie21

I have user's 4510s laptop that wont boot. According to him the there was a powercut and they shutdown the machine but when they tried to restart it wouldn't boot. Presssing ESC does nothing and even putting Hiren's CD does not boot from the CD. the scenario is similar to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN9-1ET00Rg. I have tried to remove both the hard drive and RAM and there is no beep or anything.
Please help

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This thread points at a classic laptop power/firmware hang. ’s successful battery removal shows the fault was likely a latched power/BIOS state that cleared after a full discharge, and ’s note about booting from DVD is correct only once the firmware reaches POST. The symptom set — no ESC response, no boot from external media, and no POST beeps after removing RAM/HDD — most often means the board never gets far enough into POST to enumerate devices.

Common causes and quick diagnosis notes: sudden mains loss can leave motherboard rails or the BIOS state stuck, a drained or glitching RTC/CMOS battery can hold bad settings, and some HP laptops don’t have a working internal speaker so “no beep” is not a reliable POST indicator. Optical/USB boot won’t work while the firmware is frozen, so a failed device isn’t the immediate culprit.

Practical checklist (ordered, low-risk first):

  1. Power-discharge cycle: remove AC and main battery, press-and-hold power button 15–30 seconds to drain caps, wait several minutes, then reconnect battery and AC and attempt boot.
  2. If accessible, remove the RTC coin cell for a few minutes to clear CMOS, then reinstall and boot.
  3. Test with minimal hardware: AC + one known-good RAM stick, no HDD/optical; watch LEDs/fan behavior for POST progress.
  4. Verify DC adapter output with a meter or a known-good adapter; a weak adapter can produce weird hangs.
  5. Consult HP BIOS-recovery instructions for the exact 4510s model before attempting a firmware recovery or reflash.
  6. If POST never starts, suspect motherboard/BIOS chip failure and consider professional repair; remove the drive first to image/salvage data if needed.

Antistatic precautions are advised when opening the chassis. The power-drain fix often resolves transient hangs; persistent refusal to POST usually requires board-level diagnosis or replacement.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for stormal1

To begin the Windows 7 Startup Repair process, you will need to boot from the Windows 7 or Vista DVD.

Watch for a Press any key to boot from CD or DVD... message similar to the one shown in the screenshot above.

Press a key to force the computer to boot from the Windows 7 DVD. If you do not press a key, your PC will try to boot to the operating system that's currently installed on your hard drive. If this happens, just restart your computer and try to boot to the Windows installation DVD again.

Member Avatar for bornie21

Well here is what worked for me. I removed the battery and left the computer overnight. On the next morning I put the battery back and pressed ESC and got onto the Boot device menu and just pressed ENTER to continue, said a prayer and voila windows started.

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