power on, no window boot up

mthollyspie · 13 Nov 2015

from another thread support@sevenforums.com responded to address this problem by removing all pwr sources depress stat button for 20 secs wait 10 secs then depress button for 5 secs. replace pwr sources and start up. windows booted up ok but extremely slow when going to ancestry and family tree maker programs. when done backed out of all browsers and hit start and shutdown. worked fine. that's the last time it did. retried the suggested previous protocall but w/o any results. again pwr indicator lights on but nothing happens except for a total black screen. will not boot up I don't have any ram sticks or whatever they are so can't try that option. all pc data is on thread 'not genuine windows issue'. I am using my wife's pc to communicate with you but it interrups her work tremendously. thanks in advance for any help or advice. you folks have been very helpful especially if I could return and try and correct my not genuine issue.

ICIT2LOL · 15 Nov 2015

Ok mate now for another try - remove the battery and try to boot on power adaptor alone let us know what happens.

mthollyspie · 15 Nov 2015

Thanks for your advice ICIT2LOL, but no luck. Still external pwr source light indicator, but still black screen, no windows boot up. I did notice one thing if its of any importance. When depressing the on power button the internal fan activates (?). Hope to hear from you soon.

Mellon Head · 15 Nov 2015

When you press the power button, do you see a Gateway splash screen (or anything on the screen at all)? And then does the screen go black? Or is the screen black the whole time?

ICIT2LOL · 15 Nov 2015

Ok mate now when the fan starts up is it really fast?? or just a gentle blowing .

If it is fast my gut feeling is that the CPU is not being cooled properly ie the thermal compound has dried out enough to prevent the CPU from overheating. On power up the load is quite large as you can imagine as it loads all of the start up programs. So whether you know or not a CPU has a high temperature setting that it will stop working at because it has an inbuilt thermal cutout.
I am just wondering if you can get into the BIOS it will show you the temps in there although if there is a real CPU problem you may not get that.

mthollyspie · 15 Nov 2015

First - Mellon Head, the screen is always black.
Second - thanks again ICT2LOL - I know enough to open the bottom of the laptop but - what the devil is BIOS ? I know, I'm a computer ignoramus sorry!

Mellon Head · 15 Nov 2015

If the screen is always black, you may have a computer or screen problem. Does the fan run? Does it beep on startup?

BIOS is the basic bootup program for your computer. It gets all the ducks in a row, hardware wise, and then is responsible for booting Windows. It looks after your CPU and memory, and how many hard disks you have, which hard disk to boot from, etc. It's a control program that is built into your computer. You can access it by typing a function key during bootup, (I'm sorry, I don't know which one for your particular model), and you can change parameters in it to set up the computer differently.

When your computer first powers on, BIOS does a check of the system and flashes up the name brand of the PC, and some other information before it goes and boots Windows. That's what you should see before Windows tries to load. If you can't see anything on the screen at all, then the problem is probably not with Windows, but with your hardware.

ICIT2LOL · 16 Nov 2015

Sorry late reply but Mellon Head has answered it re the Basic Input Output System - just a firmware chip that is soldered to the board that is in part is enabled to be altered via updates. To all intents and purposes it remains Read Only Memory (ROM).
It is something that is usually best left alone if the machine is working ok and unless a change is indicated.
A lengthy article but if you are curious interesting especially how it controls the hardware etc at boot up as Mellon Head has said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS :)

mthollyspie · 16 Nov 2015

As I speak I turned on my machine to check it in reply to Mellon Head's question and it started up perfectly!!. Fan on, Gateway flashed then began booting up windows. Now applying latest updates, now asking for password. Hang in there. I will go thru Crome and MSN browsers then shutdown normally and see what happens. Its been about 20 minutes now and everthing is SLOW but working. I am going to sync my family tree maker with my ancestry internet site and see if the previous changes come thru. OK.
While in Crome, You Tube, musical items, the following almost always pops up: There was a problem starting C:/users/Larry/appdata/roaming/wupdate/regpow/lan. ?

shut Off normally. Restart - nothing but 2 pwr lights and black screen and fans on. Go figure.

Mellon Head · 16 Nov 2015

It sounds like you have an intermittent hardware fault to me. If you can get it started again, I would back up all of your data.

It might be cheaper to replace the laptop rather than fix it.