# HP Pavilion DV6 wont start, blinking caps lock



## suttybutty (May 29, 2008)

My daughter has an HP Pavilion DV6, that I have fixed the symptoms of a problem but would like to get to the bottom of the cause. The problem was that it wouldn't start, when you switch on you can hear the fan, the led on the caps lock bilnks continuously, and the led on the wifi key is orange. (It is normally white when working properly.

Having trawled numerous forums including HP I could not find a resolution, many suggestions such as reset the power, clean the memory and slots etc etc, followed by loads of entries from people trying all of these without succes

I eventually came across a post that said he had fixed it by simply wrapping the laptop in a blanket, switching on, leaving for 20 minutes then switching off and on again. This post was followed by dozens of people saying this worked for them.
So, rather sceptically, I tried it and amazingly it worked. The laptop now starts every time without a problem. So aparantly problem solved.

However I would like to get to the bottom of this before it happens again. I want to find the actual reason for the failure and if necessary replace any faulty componants. I am thinking of selling the laptop but don't want to sell it to someone knowing it may fail in the near future.

My guess is that this must be heat related as wrapping in a blanket stopped the laptop cooling and it was very hot when I removed the blanket.
The laptop now starts OK regardless of the temp, I left it overnight and restarted OK.

One final thing that may or may not be relevant, when it now starts I get a message saying the cmos battery needs replacing. I can change this without a problem but I don't think this was related to the starting issue.

Just for info here is the spec...
HP Pavilion DV6
AMD Athlon II P320 Dual-Core Processor 2.1 GHz
8.00 GB RAM
64 bit Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1

Many thanks
Kevin


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

I can only assume because the blinking capslock key is a sign of a faulty motherboard that the heat somehow fixed any fault, which may have been solder related such as cracking. Generally a heat gun is used, or baking in an oven at very high temps to reflow it.
If anyone has any other ideas, I am open to them.


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## suttybutty (May 29, 2008)

Thanks for the reply. Thats interesting, but according to HPs website the blinking represents a self test done at startup and the number of blinks represents where an error occurred - 
LEDs blink 1 time - CPU
LEDs blink 2 time - BIOS CORRUPTION
LEDs blink 3 time - MEMORY
LEDs blink 4 time - GRAPHICS
LEDs blink 5 time - SYSTEM BOARD
LEDs blink 6 time - BIOS AUTHENTICATION

So I would expect 5 blinks if it was the motherboard. Unfortuntely it doesn't mention anything for continuous blinking


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