I have a Gateway P-6860FX laptop that is not booting. I previously had a blue screen hardware error the night previous while gaming (Screen glitched up with horizontal lines, went to blue screen). The next morning I attempted to boot it, but it went to start-up repair. There the screen was weird and had similar horizontal lines that were in the normally black area around the repair box (moving mouse around caused weird glitchy effects).
It tried to restart after that, and it did not boot. Now it continues not to boot. The screen turns "on" (lights up black), and the keyboard lights turn on, including the wireless indicator and num-lock (hard drive lights blinks on a couple times then off). The fans do not run at all. I have tried various fixes (Memory and Hard Drive Reseating, as well as power button 30 sec. press, External Monitor Plugged In) to no avail.
Anything I can do short of taking it to my local repair shop?
In short, no! You describe classic graphics failure. Your repair shop will telly you that you need a new motherboard, 9 times out of 10 you don't. The usual cause is a break in the soldering between the graphics chip and the motherboard. This can usually be repaired with a re-flow. It's still not a cheap job (I charge £100 for a re-flow) but it's a lot cheaper than a new motherboard which is likely to cost well in ecxess of £200.
In short, no! You describe classic graphics failure. Your repair shop will telly you that you need a new motherboard, 9 times out of 10 you don't. The usual cause is a break in the soldering between the graphics chip and the motherboard. This can usually be repaired with a re-flow. It's still not a cheap job (I charge £100 for a re-flow) but it's a lot cheaper than a new motherboard which is likely to cost well in ecxess of £200.
Thanks for the quick reply. I had a hunch it wasn't good once I exhausted most of the moderate do-it-yourself diagnostic/poor-man's-repair attempts. In addition to the motherboard, I shall look into the soldering issue.
I will post when I find out more.
Thanks Again.
No problem! It's a shame that you most likely are nowhere near where I am, I could save you a lot of money!
Credit to RikfromRCE. Nailed the diagnosis. Local Repair shop found that the connections had broken and the fix was quick and less than $100. Now just need for them to get the replacement tool that is needed to fix it (gets used a lot so I've been told).
Thanks for the help.
Good news indeed! :)
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