Laptop won't boot, can't change boot order, cd drive just clicks

I have a HP ze5568cl laptop (Windows XP SP2). For a few years we've had trouble with the power connector. We've just wiggled the power cable to keep it connected and lived with the problem. It also gets very hot and the fan runs constantly.

Yesterday when I powered it on there was no power, absolutely nothing. My husband has some electronic knowledge so we took the laptop apart and he soldered the loose part of the power connector. While he was doing that I cleaned the fan (couldn't believe how much dust was in there!)

When we plugged in the power cable the orange light came on so we were excited. When we powered it on all the keyboard lights lit up so we thought we had fixed the problem but.... that's all it did. It went no further except that the fan kicked on.

There is a clicking noise coming from the cd drive about every second with the green light flashing. I suppose it is checking to see if there is a bootable cd in the cd drive. I have attempted to change the boot order by holding F1, then F2 but it still continues to try to read the cd drive. I can't get to the screen that will allow me to change the boot order.

I also put the OS disk in the cd drive, hoping that it would start with the disk but it just clicks. Hubby removed the cover of the cd drive and I could see that the cd is spinning.

There were no problems with this laptop prior to the power problem. It was really working very well especially considering the age of it.

The information in my sig is not for the computer with the problem. It's actually for an old computer which my son now has at college.

Any suggestions? Please?

 

Removed superfluous stuff from quote.

Ok, so you had a flaky power connector, it finally dies, your husband fixes it with his soldering iron. Ok got you so far. Then you powered it on but it didn't do anything except spin the fan. Ok still got you.

Does it POST?

 

My husband told me it looked like I was writing a book. Just didn't want to leave out any pertinent info.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by POST.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?q=post&...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

 

No, I don't think so. There is no beep, just the clicking of the cd drive.

 

That's a serious problem. You may need to confirm with your EXACT BIOS, but no POST beeps means either 'power supply problem' or 'motherboard problem'.

 

Okay, thanks.

 

Any suggestion on where to go from here?

 

Did you find out from the manufacturer what the 'No Beep on POST' means?

Assuming one of my suggestions is correct, if it was the power supply I'd expect it to be dead and not turn on in any shape. Since you've gotten that far we can assume it's not the power supply in the gross sense (maybe it's no longer got a decent 12v line or it's ground is shot...but if your not a tech you aren't going to find that), so that would leave the motherboard as the problem.

What do you want to do at this point?

 

Ideally, I want to get another 12 months out of this computer.

The "no beep" from HP means what you've already said - either 'power supply problem' or 'motherboard problem'.

No, I don't really understand the tech stuff you mentioned but my husband probably will. I'll have him read it when he gets home. I do know that before he put it back together he tested it with an ohm meter and that left him hopeful. So it doesn't seem that it would be a power problem any longer.

 

Please.... does anybody else have any advice for me?

I've hooked up another monitor to it just to sure that wasn't the problem. And it wasn't.

 

If your motherboard is the problem, do you want to replace it?

Are you going to do this yourself?

Let us know.