HP Pavilion DM4 blank screen (caps lock blinks once)
Good day folks. I'd like to ask for some advice on this HP laptop I got here. Truth be told, it's currently in "junk" state, but it seems nice enough for me to try and fix it, plus why not, just for fun, so:
This is actually my second encounter with this guy. When I originally got it, it had the same issue and a reflow of the AMD graphics chip sorted it. Less than an year after that, the lady brought it back in saying it's no longer turning on again...which was to be expected TBH, since that's ultimately the fate of reflown lappies...no surprises there. Having told her from the very start that it WILL fail again sooner or later, she just said I could keep it since she was no longer interested in it....fair enough.
The thing sat on a shelf for like an year until I was having a bit of a clear-out and stumbled upon it. I wanted to give it another shot before parting it out, so this is what's currently going on: you plug it in, press the power button, the power LED comes on and after a while the caps lock LED blinks once and that's about it. I was convinced it's the GPU again, since it was the only obvious suspect. I blasted it with some hot air, not actually doing a proper reflow job on it this time, but it didn't change anything sadly...the strange thing is that neither the CPU nor the GPU appear to heat up. On other laptops, faulty or not, the GPU would become too hot to touch in a matter of seconds, but this one stays stone-cold.
There's another thing I noticed as well, which further makes the job of identifying the fault harder: the BIOS chip had been tampered with. It's got obvious signs of replacement/removal, so I'm not sure this laptop would start even with a functional GPU....
I found a listing of error codes of HP laptops and apparently the 1-blink means a faulty CPU ? :| I however doubt it and still suspect the GPU, after all, it's its second failure, so the chances of bringing it back are getting slimmer and slimmer each time...however I'm still thinking of that BIOS chip also...
The power light doesn't come without the CPU installed - that's another thing I noticed.
Definitely a common problem with HPs and I doubt there's any point in bothering with it
but perhaps someone has run into the same issue and has a brainy idea 
Cheers and thanks.
This is actually my second encounter with this guy. When I originally got it, it had the same issue and a reflow of the AMD graphics chip sorted it. Less than an year after that, the lady brought it back in saying it's no longer turning on again...which was to be expected TBH, since that's ultimately the fate of reflown lappies...no surprises there. Having told her from the very start that it WILL fail again sooner or later, she just said I could keep it since she was no longer interested in it....fair enough.
The thing sat on a shelf for like an year until I was having a bit of a clear-out and stumbled upon it. I wanted to give it another shot before parting it out, so this is what's currently going on: you plug it in, press the power button, the power LED comes on and after a while the caps lock LED blinks once and that's about it. I was convinced it's the GPU again, since it was the only obvious suspect. I blasted it with some hot air, not actually doing a proper reflow job on it this time, but it didn't change anything sadly...the strange thing is that neither the CPU nor the GPU appear to heat up. On other laptops, faulty or not, the GPU would become too hot to touch in a matter of seconds, but this one stays stone-cold.
There's another thing I noticed as well, which further makes the job of identifying the fault harder: the BIOS chip had been tampered with. It's got obvious signs of replacement/removal, so I'm not sure this laptop would start even with a functional GPU....
I found a listing of error codes of HP laptops and apparently the 1-blink means a faulty CPU ? :| I however doubt it and still suspect the GPU, after all, it's its second failure, so the chances of bringing it back are getting slimmer and slimmer each time...however I'm still thinking of that BIOS chip also...
The power light doesn't come without the CPU installed - that's another thing I noticed.
Definitely a common problem with HPs and I doubt there's any point in bothering with it
but perhaps someone has run into the same issue and has a brainy idea Cheers and thanks.
Comment