Major pc problem!!!!

[sabre2th]

Hi, I got this toshiba laptop (tecra M2) , quite old really but still ran fine up until 2 days ago.
It was getting slow over the past few years ( with only 512mb ram ) and the OS is XP proffesianal service pack 3.
I was on google and suddenly the screen froze, then turned black then after 2 seconds came back with google on, but this time the screen had red and green streaks through it. Initially I thought it was the monitor (my laptop screen backlight broke) so I unplugged and plugged it in again but the " no signal " text came up fine , with no streaks.
The screen kept going black and coming back again for abut a minute so I hit ctrl+alt+del so I could shut it down, as the start button text had vanished... I hard reset it from the switch after that.

Now if I turn it on I just get a black screen, and there are no lights on the front where they are usually on ( hardrive light is off , only the power light) and there is litterally no noise from the fan... I cant even boot it into safe mode, is there anything I can do ???

If I could at least backup some of the stuff on the hardrive I will be fine... Thanks

[tangomouse]

first thing i would try is removing the hd and see if it turns on and can boot from cd ,also remove the battery and boot with Ac cord in .
if not then its one of 3 things the Cpu and possibly thermal paste "yes thermal paste can cause a laptop to crash" ,bad ram ,try borrowing a stick or even reseat it , other than all that its the mobo.
if it is the mobo then its chuck in bin time ,however you mite find a replacement board on ebay
Good luck , Ive now got a laptop with same symptoms to fix.

[sabre2th]

first thing i would try is removing the hd and see if it turns on and can boot from cd ,also remove the battery and boot with Ac cord in .
if not then its one of 3 things the Cpu and possibly thermal paste "yes thermal paste can cause a laptop to crash" ,bad ram ,try borrowing a stick or even reseat it , other than all that its the mobo.
if it is the mobo then its chuck in bin time ,however you mite find a replacement board on ebay
Good luck , Ive now got a laptop with same symptoms to fix.

Ah thank you very much tangomouse , good to know someonen who knows what they are talking about and has the same problem. Right, based on your advise I will see what happens if I boot with the hdd ... one question, is this the way of complete factory RESET because if all else fails that is what I will do , if it can be done that is.

[tangomouse]

sorry wrong board...

This is general forum ,just about anything goes "generally"

---------- Post added at 12:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 AM ----------

based on your advise I will see what happens if I boot with the hdd ... one question, is this the way of complete factory RESET because if all else fails that is what I will do , if it can be done that is.

no, normally you would remove the battery and ac cord and hold down the power button to reset a laptop but depends on the make.

just to let you know ,the one i am fixing at the moment ,the mobo is fried ,it a old model acer travelmate 290 and getting a board is near impossible


EDIT: I found two corroded chips ,cleaned them with a toothbrush and alcohol and its working fine! ,that could be something worth looking for yourself

[sabre2th]

So your saying it is physical damage?

[tangomouse]

So your saying it is physical damage?

in my case yes it was... its something for you to look into ,your not gunna know until you take the machine apart ,If you have never taken a laptop apart before then i would download a disassembly guide or service manual

[sabre2th]

in my case yes it was... its something for you to look into ,your not gunna know until you take the machine apart ,If you have never taken a laptop apart before then i would download a disassembly guide or service manual

I will try, thanks for the help dude. first I must do the easy stuff though and if it does not do anything I will then proceed with dis assembling it, it doesnnt matter too much after all it is old lol

[PSK]

good luck.
i searched google and i am posting the first two links of guides here (they look promising, the second one is based on toshiba laptops)
the general one
the toshiba based one

i again say good luck as you need all the luck you can get

[sabre2th]

good luck.
i searched google and i am posting the first two links of guides here (they look promising, the second one is based on toshiba laptops)
the general one
the toshiba based one

i again say good luck as you need all the luck you can get

Ah thanks dude really appreciate it , this should help alot
I will post again when I have tried all the methods

[tangomouse]

a common fault on some Toshiba equiums is they blow chargers ,and there's no known fix ,however i have a theory ,when user replace charges they always buy 19 volt and equiums use 15V