HP laptop just died

[Bdee1]

so i have an old HP laptop dv1000 series i think its actually a dv1310us - is it like 3-4 years old at least and it has always worked very well for me. well tonight i was typing up an email and it suddently just instantly shut off.

it does not power back on no matter what i do. if i plug it into power, i don't get the charging light on it like i normally do.

any ideas on how to go about getting it to work again?

 

[frozenlead]

Sounds like a short. Check that the power supply is still outputting power with a multimeter if you can. Can you smell anything burnt close to the notebook?
Let it cool down and see if it powers back up, maybe an auto BIOS heat shutdown? Cooling vents get pretty clogged in 3-4 years.

 

[dwellman]

Also, if you haven't done so, take the battery out and try to turn it on (plugged in of course)

Then, take everything out you can, hard drive, ram, optical drive, expansion cards and try again.

Then if it still doesn't power on, if it were mine, I'd tear the whole thing down and try to power the bare board by itself (nothing connected, no cpu, no fans, no lcd, no nothing). But, that's just me.

 

[Bdee1]

frozenlead - unfortunately i do not have a multimeter - and i am not sure where the power supply is on these things. i've done lots of PC troubleshooting before but i have never really worked on notebook PCs before. also i don't think it was a heat issue because it still is nto powering up. bummer.

dwellman - i will try powering on with the battery removed, and if that doesn't work i will try removing everything i can easily get access to.

worst case, i suppose it is time for a new laptop but i would really rather not spend the money on it right now.

 

[frozenlead]

The power supply on a notebook is the big black brick you plug into the wall. If that doesn't work, neither does your notebook. Taking apart the notebook is a good step, but checking that PSU is, IMO a step that should be taken first. Does the brick have some sort of LED light on it? Do you have a friend with a multimeter? There are other less formal ways to test it that involve shorting it out and looking for sparks...but I don't recommend you try them.
Other than that, do what dwellman said. Take parts off one at a time, see if some config produces some change. That may indicate the bad part.