laptop won't power on

[pak000]

Does anyone know any common causes for my laptop not to power on.

It will not power on under battery or mains. It's a sony vaio v505.

The mains power lead has a light at the tip, so i know that is receiving power. There is also a light on the computer that would indicate the battery charging (which is most the time), this no longer comes on.

When I attempt to switch it on, there is no response, no lights, no image on the screen.

I urgently need my laptop to work again, it is the computer i use at university and although I have backups, the uni computers don't have my software so I would have to work from home, which is not an option. Any advice would be appreciated.

[gha128]

Have you tried powering it on with the battery removed but connected to the mains?

[jimbouk]

If you know someone with a universal power supply (or the same laptop/power supply) then you could try with that to see if the PSU is the problem.

I've had something similar with my laptop - when the battery was low it wouldn't start the computer as there wasn't enough juice in it to give it the initial kick, but with the mains in it was fine. Try gha128's suggestion incase the battery is sucking up too much juice.


Not sure about other common failures though, could be anything inside it that isn't working. If it's neither of the above then it's probably something complicated and a professional repair job

[GoNz0]

its common for them to lock out for no good reason, often needing a simple bios reset to get them running again.

trouble is finding the cmos battery though. some are servicable, others require a total stripdown to get to the battery.

[pak000]

I've tried with/without the battery in. I've linked up a multimeter to measure the powersupply and i've also been to a computer store where they tried a universal power supply.

Power is reaching the battery when the mains is plugged in although there are multiple pins with various voltages across them (none at or above the voltage the battery is supposed to deliver)

I don't currently have any suitable screwdrivers with me as they are with my data collection stuff which is not in another town some distance away (silly me thinking that I wouldn't need them).

Someone from uni is bringing in some screwdrivers to dismantle the laptop tomorrow (if they remember).

Thanks for your suggestions