# HP pavilion DV8000 crashed, blinking power light



## Nightwarrior (Oct 24, 2008)

Hello, 
My parents laptop crashed, it's a stock HP pavilion DV8000, nothing changed and no additional internal hardware. But they turned it on yesterday and it didn't boot. It will power on all the blue lights, you hear the fan but then it stops doing ANYTHING at all only the power button is blinking very fast, way to fast to indicate its in hibernate. Anyone had this problem to and fixed it? BTW I tried the following things:
Switching RAM cards, No success
Booting with only AC adapter in it without the battery, No success

Nothing more actually. Anyone knows how to fix it please answer. It would save my parents a lot of money to buy a brand new one I guess.

~Nightwarrior


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Try removing the battery and AC adapter then press and hold power ON button for 30 secs. Put back the battery and plug the AC adapter then power ON as normal.


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## aj4mq (Oct 24, 2009)

Here it is. 

HP has an undocumented addition that causes quite a bit of confusion.. You will be working on your system, and if you are paying attention, both the power and charge lights start flashing.. According to HP Support, this is not possible. (not documented). so what does this mean? Your laptop is trying to "retrain" the battery.

Retraining requires that when the battery reaches 100%, both lights flash, indicating the battery is discharging. Windows will try to shut down to protect itself until about 5% (as configured). Then, it powers off.. but wait, the charge light is still flashing.

Now, you just have to wait for it to discharge the rest of the way. Leaving it off could take years (if ever). Turning on Windows could only invite a crash. One nice solution, either enter BIOS, or run a ram test. Once the battery reaches 1%, the power light should remain solid, but the charge light will still flash. (Hidden charge). 

Windows will report the battery has 0% or is missing.. unfortunately, BIOS has not released the battery to normal operation yet. once it reaches 100%, it will stop blinking the lights, and the training process will be complete.. So that's it, right? Nope.

If the battery doesn't reach 100% during a normal charge cycle, it will initiate the "retrain" automatically. I have not yet found any way to disable it, or to reload the original bios to the charger.

Unfortunately, you face the same problem I do, buy a new battery for $100 (US), or replace it with another laptop...

Since the display is dying of old age (and much sooner than my first laptop, since it still works), I will probably find a cheap replacement I can torture.

Unfortunately, the only certified HP repair facility in existence resides in Texas (and since I am far elsewhere), I will not buy another HP device.

Shame, HP used to stand for reliable technology. Strange to think Toshiba is making better marks. I am still happy that HP, Dell and Toshiba have their own recovery discs, making life easier when necessary..

Good luck in your quest. (and watch out for Windows Starter.)

AJ4MQ


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## aj4mq (Oct 24, 2009)

*CORRECTION:* This -IS- a bios indication, but not retraining mode as I though. After reading replies to my post on this to other sites, I looked much closer at my power supply and found it has actually been damaged at the strain relief on the power supply side. I removed 6 inches of cord and resoldered it to the primary board, and the problem is gone. (this one..)

What happened? When the power supply is unable to provide a specific voltage at a specific current level, the BIOS will flash the power light to indicate invalid power supply. When the battery is in use when the system is not being powered correctly, it will flash. 

Check you power device carefully. I don't recommend resoldering the wires, as I have gotten good at this by destroying a few in the past. I recommend a universal power supply from Radio Shack or similar, such as the iGo, which the more expensive one will allow you to power off of your car, but all adapt most every laptop out there, so if you ever get a new laptop, it will work with it.

Hope this helps.


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