# Compaq 2500 Presario Notebook Won't Power Up, No Lights, No Noise, No Nothing!



## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

Compaq Presario 2500 notebook (DM758A) is totally DEAD. There is absolutely no power to it at all. No lights, no noise, no nothing! The syptoms are the exactly the same as a failed PSU in a desktop. The power pak works and tests out ok. I even tried another one just in case. Also the battery was fully charged and that don't get it to power up either. Someone had suggested that it may be the power module. What can I do to get this up and running?

I took it apart carefully with ease and this is what it looks like:










Any suggestions? :4-dontkno


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## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

Ok, I got it to work!!! :grin: It may have been at least two things that I know of. On the intake of the heatsink fan, there was real gooey dust on the board. I scrubbed it with a toothbrush. I also removed the CMOS battery when I had everything apart. So it could of been either one or both.

Now help me through this. I'm not sure if it ever did take what it seems to be forever to boot up and get off the compaq splash screen at boot up. When you hit the esc key it brings up the boot process as it normally does. The reason it is taking so long is because it is checking the extended RAM. I went into CMOS and changed the time and such but there is no option whatsoever to have it stop checking the RAM. So I'm guessing it did take some time to boot in the first place.

Any suggestions?


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## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

:laugh: All is good all it needed was a reboot. Slowness gone, laptop in tip top shape!!


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## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

NOW I since I got it working, two days later, POOF same thing, deader than a doornail. No led lights, no noise, no NOTHING! The battery is fully charged and it doesn't work plugged in nor with just the battery. 

What could be the problem?


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2005)

hmmm.. you may wanna change your battery. Do whatever you did 2 days ago at a time and see what is causing it. tough one from here.


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## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

When it is plugged in there are absolutely NO led lights on. Even when the laptop is totally off you should receive an orange charging led and when it is finished charging it turns to a green led. So I think that it having no led lights and the battery is near full charge tells me it is something beyond the switch, battery, charger, and power jack.

Could this symptom be consistant with a bad CMOS battery?

Also, my buddy described that the laptop, before it wouldn't turn back on, seemed to be running ordinarily hot. The heat was coming from the left side were the heatsink's exhaust area is. He was running some game he just downloaded and the game seemed to be tacking out the processor, by the way he described the game performance (running slow and choppy). My guess is he is just on high alert because of the recent issue and the high heat he is describing is the normal "my processor" is working overtime deal.

So where do you think I should start when taking this badboy in to the operation room again. :4-dontkno


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## daygo140 (Aug 3, 2005)

What I did was unplug the laptop and remove the battery. I pressed the power button in several times and also pressed it in a held it for a few seconds. I walked away from it for awhile. Came back and as soon as I plugged it in, front led light came on, it's in business! 

The owner thinks a certain game may have caused it. Because she doesn't have her notebook, she now plays the same game on her husband's PC. Her and her husband noticed the PC's fan kicking on like never before.

So that said while I had the notebook up and running I started that particular game. From the moment I double-clicked it the notebook fan sounded like a turbine engine and a ton of heat blaired from the exhaust fan to the CPU heatsink.

I am going to recommend that she remove that game from her notebook. The game is Magic Vines from Big Fish Games. There isn't anyway I can let her run it and be able to keep her CPU from getting so hot, is there?


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## notherusr (Sep 15, 2005)

*Compaq Laptop*

Personaly... well.. compaq presario's could've done a better job on it's laptops. 

I have laptop, does same thing. Shutoff, won't start up, the trick is to pull out the battery and unplug, then hold power button for 30 seconds, it resets the laptop, works fine after that. 

Had it sent to get it fixed, but they never got it working. Also, compaq presario's do run hot. If you take it appart further then you did, you'll see they use a cheap termal pad on cpu between the heatsink, instead of some good quality paste. I cleaned it up gently with some rubbing alcohol, it's run much smoother since then. 

Anyways.. if I did it again, I wouldn't get this laptop. It looks nice, but too many little things have gone off with it. Plus getting a flash for the dumbed-down bios turned out to be impossible for me. Just waiting for it to die before I get a new comp. 

Sorry for the bias, but really, you could find tons of threads on crap presarios. 

-j


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## lewdogg (Sep 20, 2005)

how did you get the bottom of the case off for this? my hard drive went out this morning and i'm struggling to get the bottom of the case off even with all screws removed.

thanks


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## jfarc (Sep 29, 2005)

Daygo,

I'm bet your problem is a loose solder connection on the dc plug receptacle. These thing are notorious for that - bad design having the recepticle soldered to the motherboard, which takes all the shock plugging in/out.


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## jfarc (Sep 29, 2005)

lewdogg,

You have to pry the speaker panel (just below screen hinges) to unhide the keyboard screws just underneath it(pry from left side first). Once the speaker cover is out of the way(you can disconnect plug) you need to remove the keyboard also. Be careful of the ribbon cable. Once keyboard is out of the way, you will see the last single screw in the middle of the laptop.


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## Hampdog (Sep 29, 2005)

I have the same laptop but a different problem. it has power but the screen dosn't display anything even with an external monitor, none of the fans work and the CD rom makes a clicking noise. i took it apart and all the wires seem to be connected, but i don't know much about this sort of thing.
Any ideas what might be wrong?


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## Hampdog (Sep 29, 2005)

Ok the fans are working now but the screen is still dead and the CD rom stops clicking when the CPU isn't in.


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## ricwind (Oct 3, 2005)

*It be the big bad ram ;-o*

Hi Hampdog.

It sounds like a ram issue to me.
Try another few strips of ram in your Presario, I have seen this issue many times.

Hope that helps.

Regards.
ric


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## taikendo (Apr 13, 2008)

The clicking sound may be the video card.


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