PCTech Forums

So I downloaded an update for Adobe and proceeded to restart, I went to get some dinner and when I came back to the computer, it was on, but showed only a blank black screen. I tried to get the regular screen to come up, but I ended up having to turn it off by pressing and holding the power button. When I turned it back on, it didn't show anything and only made three beeps, one longer one followed by two shorter ones. Any ideas on what happened?

The computer is a HP Entertainment Laptop, about a year and a half old running WinXP. This has happened once or twice before...the computer hangs and won't shut down completely, but it has always come back up after I forced it to turn off...

The beep code means a video error, does that machine have onboard video or a sound card?

Yea, I'm pretty sure it's an NVIDIA GeForce, but I don't know the specifics on it. It came with the computer. The guys as Best Buy didn't know anything about the problem (not surprising) and said that it'll have to be sent back to HP...

wow, i just realized what i typed. What i was meaning to ask is if the video was onboard or if it has a VIDEO card.

I had replied to a sound post just before i typed that, sorry.

I'm not sure what you mean...the video/sound card is onboard...I was having a little trouble with the sound off and on, sometimes the sound was discontinuous, it's hard to explain, if there was sound on a webpage it would play really slow, but whenever I restarted, the problem went away.

Troubling news indeed...thanks for the help!

Hi Robym6

You might want to check a few other things. A lot of people put their laptops on beds and tables with tablecloths and these tend to keep the laptop from cooling off properly and they overheat causing all sorts of problems. My sons computer was overheating and we ended up buying a USB laptop fan base to keep it cool.

Most laptops come with an auxiliary video plug. I would suggest trying to boot with a regular monitor hooked up to it.

If you do send it to HP, the first thing that they will do is re image the hard drive. If you have data on it that you need, I suggest swapping out the hard drive before you send it in.

If it was a heat issue and you now have a video screen and it is black, Boot up and tap on the F8 key until you get a menu. Select last known good configuration and you should be good to go.

I don't think it's a heat problem, I had it sitting on a bare table with nothing blocking the fan, I also tried booting it up again the next day and it still did the same thing.

I don't have access to an extra monitor, but I'll be sure to try that next weekend when I do.

I likely won't send it back to HP, I'm gonna have a friend of mine (who has much more computer knowledge than I do) look at it, and if he can't fix it, I'll probably have a local repair shop do the repairs.

Just to give you a heads up. I repair laptops and the usual charge for basic repairs, hard drive or keyboard is around $200. If it's the video card, the repairman is going to send it to HP. This is work that would be done on the motherboard. HP is pretty reasonable, usually their charge is about $200.

I recommend getting an estimate before you get it fixed. Laptops are only $300 to $500 new right now. It's not uncommon for repair shops to charge $150 per hour now days.

Good luck

Liljim

The store gets $150 an hour the tech gets about $15. I do repairs on the side and charge about $75 a job plus parts. I have no problem keeping customers at that rate.

Computer shops don't pay much but they sure charge a lot. My sister got nailed for $700 on a Dell repair in Colorado. Which I find hard to believe. So watch out.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely get estimates, but if it gets too high, I'll just forget about it, there are some file's I'd like to get off, but if I don't, it's not the end of the world. I've already gotten a new HP notebook.