View Full Version : Compaq Presario 1200
TekeTorvo
02-18-05, 09:31 AM
I took my broken LapTop from the attic to take the fans out in hopes of using them for modding. While I had it down, I thought I would give it one last try to get it working again.
When I push the power button, it lights up (not the screen, just the power lights), and the hard drives spin, but it doesn't post.
Any ideas?
I am headed to work. Please post any ideas you may have and I will check when I get home. Thanks.
what kind of laptop are we talkin about here??? i can only sugguest general things like reseat your ram, use external crt (if you can)...check for overheating thou it might be difficult if it only runs for like 3 seconds....
Wow..I have the SAME problem with the SAME type of laptop....battery charges well...
Someone told me to reset the bios or something, but I have to physically take the laptop apart, find the cmos battery and replace it or pull it out...anyone know how to take this thing apart? or any other fixes for this?
I'm the (well, one of) person(s) who mentioned to wandl about partially disassembling the laptop, and unplugging/removing the CMOS battery...
I recently got a Presario 1720US parts machine thru eBAY, which had a "dead mobo" in it. the original owner stated it stopped recognizing USB devices one day, and he rebooted it thinking it a Windows issue...it never came back on.
I got it missing several key components (most importantly, the CPU), and before I got them, I plugged in the battery from my 17XL260 for giggles. The LEDs lit up as the *should*...curious for a "dead" board.
When I got the missing pieces together, I assembled the laptop, and tried it out. The LEDs lit up again, and I could hear the HDD spin up, but nothing else happened. I tested it using an external monitor...nope, not that. Reseated the ram...nope... I gave up, and decided the board was indeed dead.
The next day a fellow posted a question about his Presario 1700T (same laptop family as both of mine). He'd swapped in a faster CPU, and when he fired it up, got LEDs and heard the HDD spin up.... He was directed to R&R the CMOS battery, and this cured his problem.
It dawned on me I hadn't done that with the 1720US with the "dead" mobo. apart it came, and I did, and upon reassembling, I got a CMOS error beep code of 1-3-1. (bad memory).
In the process of trying to get it to work before, I had tested EVERY stick of ram I had, including some PC100 (it takes PC133), which was still installed. I took out the PC100, and it fired right up. (I had to set everything in the BIOS, naturally..date, time, boot order, etc..). It's run flawlessly since.
Sooo....try this; with the battery out, and no AC plugged in, remove the CMOS battery, and hold the power button pressed for 30 seconds or so. This will fully discharge the capacitors on the mobo. Put the CMOS battery back in, reassemble it enough to test fire it, and see what happens.
Let us know... ;)
Someone posted a link to a site with a number of disassembly instructions earlier;
http://tuxmobil.org/disassembly_laptop.html
Here's a page on the 1200, linked to from there... It's a bit vague, but might help some.
http://www.thisischris.com/feature/2002/laptop.html
awesome mr.b will try it when I get home...
EDIT: I tried..removing the bios chip, pressing the power button for almost 1 minute..same symptoms..any other ideas...anyone? :cry:
awesome mr.b will try it when I get home...
EDIT: I tried..removing the bios chip, pressing the power button for almost 1 minute..same symptoms..any other ideas...anyone? :cry:
BIOS CHIP?!?.... I'm guessing you meant battery..... :shrug: :confused:
lol that's one way to clear your bios... I thought it was impossible to pry em outta the socket without damaging at least one pin... the again I am pretty clumsey...
with my computer I don't even need to remove the bios battery as holding the power button for more than 20 seconds causes the effect of a bios jumper short....
in a situation like this where all methods have been exausted I will make a one last desperate attempt to remedy the problem by completelly dissasembeling the thing and put everything back together again in hopes that there is some magical force that will make it work again.... but that's just me and I'm crazy!
Have you ever given your computer a good THWACK (don't smack the monotor, smack the computer)... From personal experience, technology sometimes needs a good thwacking to get back on track... for example our VCR stopped working and one day out of frustration that I coulden't tape a favorite show I smacked the thing and it like glitched on for a minuite... eventually I figured out that if I turn it upsidown it would work like new, so for a year we had an upsidown vcr in the house...
BIOS CHIP?!?.... I'm guessing you meant battery..... :shrug: :confused:
err cmos battery...it was late...lol...
aaahhh ok I've tried pressing the power button for a minute, didn't work...I took off the cmos battery and reseated it......even with a dead cmos, the computer will still boot, no? I hear the HD spin and the dvd rom drive spin but nothing boots..I don't think its power is it?
aaahhh ok I've tried pressing the power button for a minute, didn't work...I took off the cmos battery and reseated it......even with a dead cmos, the computer will still boot, no? I hear the HD spin and the dvd rom drive spin but nothing boots..I don't think its power is it?
Your ram is known good? (you should get beeps though...Hmmmmm.. )
CPU known good?
If it were a power inverter inside the laptop (some have them..don't know about the 1200's though), I'd imagine that nothing at all would happen if that was shot...but I could be wrong.
I have had desktops where the board was bad, and the LEDs lit, and fans and drives spun, so it's possible the board is done.
I've seen boards for sale on eBAY, but by the time you find one with a non_DOA, you'd be plunking down a fair chunk of a newer complete, running laptop. That 1200 has an AMD K6 in it, right? I got a low end P/// Presario for really short money (P/// 500...the "U8" mPGA2 Socket 495 version), and if the CPU is socketed, not soldered onto the board, you could take a low end lappy like this, and boost it all the way up to a 1GHz chip.
Something to consider....
B.
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