When your laptop doesn’t start up, or is malfunctioning, it can be very stressful. Obviously, if the laptop is still under warranty, you should take it in for repair, but if not, the idea of repairing it yourself may seem like a daunting task.
However, many of the most common problems are easy to diagnose, and don’t require a lot of technical skill to repair. Let’s start with a few common scenarios.

Laptop Doesn’t Power Up and Makes No Sound

In this case, when you press the power button, the laptop does nothing. You see no power lights come on, you hear no sounds, and the laptop is just generally “dead”. The most likely cause of this is a power problem.

1. If the laptop isn’t plugged in, connect your AC adapter to the laptop and plug it into the wall. If the laptop doesn’t come on immediately, wait for 1 to 4 hours and try again. Some laptops require the battery to reach a certain charge before the laptop will turn on.
2. If the AC adapter has an indicator light on it, make sure it is lit, and that all cables are firmly seated. If you have a voltage meter, you can check to ensure the voltage coming out of the adapter is correct. If not, or there is no voltage, you may need to replace your AC adapter.
3. Also try removing the battery from the laptop and trying to boot the laptop on only the AC power. If the laptop powers up, it can indicate a bad battery. If it still doesn’t boot up, chances are your AC adapter needs to be replaced.

Laptop Boots Up and Makes Normal Noises, but Screen is Black

In this case, you start up the laptop and it sounds normal. You hear boot up sounds and see the power lights light up, but see only a black screen. This is usually an indication of a bad LCD screen, a bad connection to the screen, or a problem with the video card in the laptop.

1. First, try turning up the brightness on your screen. It is possible that the brightness was turned all the way down. Also, some laptops have a hotkey assigned to switch from an external monitor to the laptop screen. Try pressing this hotkey, and consult your manual if you have trouble identifying it.
2. Connect an external monitor to your laptop. If you can see the desktop on this monitor, at least you know the laptop is functioning. Try changing display settings in Control Panel-Display-Settings tab. Here, you can switch from internal to external displays, and you may find that your internal display has gotten disabled. If you can see the screen on the external monitor but not the internal monitor, you probably have a bad LCD screen or video cable connection. Let’s narrow down one more possibility with this scenario, however.
3. Consult your manual for instructions on removing and replacing the RAM memory modules in your laptop. Most laptops have a rectangular panel (sometimes behind the battery) that will need to be removed to access the modules. Turn off the laptop and remove the panel. Try powering up the laptop with only one module, then only the other module. This will eliminate the likelihood of a bad RAM module causing the problem.

If you have gotten this far and haven’t had any results, you taken all the basic troubleshooting steps that the average user should attempt. At this point, I highly recommend you take your laptop in for professional repair, I recommend a service like www.sparepartswarehouse.com.

Once you have tried the steps above, there are only a few possibilities left that may be causing the problem. One possibility is a bad cable connection somewhere inside the laptop, which can be tested by disassembling the laptop and testing all cable connections. Next, it is possible that you have a bad component, such as a hard drive, optical drive, or audio card. You can test these by disconnecting each individual component and trying to boot up again. Some of these components may be soldered to the motherboard, meaning that you cannot disconnect them.

Lastly, you may have either a bad CPU or a bad motherboard. CPU failures are relatively rare unless there is a malfunction in the cooling system of the laptop and the CPU is overheated. Motherboard failures are more common, and if all other possibilities are eliminated, it is likely a failed motherboard or one of the many components soldered to it directly. In many cases, it may be less expensive to replace your laptop than to have the motherboard replaced, as it is a labor-intensive process for a technician.

As I said before, once you have tried the basic troubleshooting steps, it is usually better to seek professional advice. Disassembling and reassembling a laptop is not an easy task. If your laptop is valuable, leave it to the professionals, and know that you did a thorough diagnostic of the simplest fixes.