[larry6832]

Hi,

I've hot an HP Pavilion dv6700 series laptop. About a week ago, the computer started turning off for no reason while in use. I would reboot and it would be ok for a while then do it again. Now when I try to turn it on, the lights go on, the fan starts, and within a second or two it turns off. About 10 seconds later, with no prompting by me, it will attempt to turn itself on again. It continues in this cycle until I unplug it and remove the battery. It never even makes it to a BIOS screen or Boot Menu. The screen stays blank and the machine turns off before anything else can happen.

I thought it was an overheating issue at first, but I've let it sit overnight and still no luck. Tried reseating the RAM, and tried each RAM stick by itself thinking one might be bad. About a month ago I put in a new Optical drive that didn't work, so I removed that as well.

Someone suggested it was a virus, but how can that be the case if it never even makes it through POST? I haven't tried it, but I'm guessing I could remove the hard drive entirely and it still wouldn't start, so that seems to rule out a Virus as the culprit. I've also regularly run AVG scans and SpyBot scans, and after it started happening I ran a scan with Malwarebytes.

Is my motherboard fried, or is there something easier I can try that might fix this. I've searched this forum plenty of times in the past and found great answers. This is the first time I'm actually posting my own question. Any help would be greatly appreaciated!

Thank you,

Larry

[TekTime]

You are most likely correct; a virus wouldn't affect your computer during POST
(unless it's a very rare CMOS affecting virus in which I never encountered)

Could be a motherboard problem. If the computer were a desktop I would suggest looking at the power supply first, but since it's a laptop - the symptoms you described sound like a motherboard problem. It's most likely failing.

Are you familiar with taking apart your laptop? You can remove the casing either partially or fully if so, to clear CMOS. Clearing CMOS will help you further narrow down the problem. If clearing CMOS is all that's required to restore functionality to your laptop, that would be a good thing.

*I see that your laptop was released in April 2009. Not sure if you have a warranty but if you do disassembling your laptop could void the warranty. *

[larry6832]

Hey Tektime, and thanks for the suggestion. I removed the CMOS battery and put it back, but the issue still persists. Is that all it takes to clear CMOS? I'll google it and see if there's an additional step that I missed.

Thanks for the warranty warning, but it's actually expired. Maybe I misread the model number, but the PC is actually almost three years old. HP wants me to purchase a new one year warranty before they will help me with it. But if the motherboard really is the problem, I'm thinking I might be better off just buying a new PC rather than spending a bunch of money maintaining this one.

[TekTime]

Removing the battery should be effective in clearing CMOS. I'd recommend removing it for at least 20 minutes. How much is the one year warranty, and what would it cover? (it may be a viable option...depending)