My wife's HP Pavilon z13000 refuses to load. When the 'on' button is pushed,
the hard drive spins fora few seconds then stops. The ROM bios screen does not appear and the POST test does not complete (no beeps at all). I tried getting to the ROM bios by pushing F10; tried booting from a bood disk, etc and nada. It is (was) running XP Home.
I would think in may be a power supply problem?

Any suggestions for a repair? Is it best to call HP and send it for a factory repair, or is there a better placeto contact? It was fairly expensive a few years ago (1800) and could serve as an extra at home.

If you do not have a warranty then buying a new laptop could be cheaper.

To me if the HDD starts spinning and then stops then it is probably not an HDD problem. Its either a controller issue or HDD failure. I am not an expert, just that I had an HP omnibook from 02 to 05, had a three year warranty and had to send it seven times during the three years.

This doesn't sound like a HD failure--those don't show up until after the POST is complete.

Most power supply problems show up even earlier than this, the supply doesn't stabilize in time and the board shuts down.

That basically leaves the MB as the culprit--and even if you can get one it's unlikely to be economic on a machine that old.

I've actually seen laptops with memory failures act like this. If there are 2 SODIMMS, try removing 1 of the 2. Then swap the 2 SODIMMS and try it. SOME laptops will boot with no SODIMMS if there is soldered memory on the system board.

Graphics/Display card?

I've got a mostly dead laptop right now that exibited similar symptoms, and one of the times I got it to boot, the Windows problem reporting thingy came up and told me there was a problem with my graphics card.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried the SODIMM thing and did not get anywhere.

I also thought of the graphics card or screen, but figured I would have gotten further on in the startup process.

When you plug in the power supply, does the charging or power light
come on?

It could be the power adapter. If it dead, the battery might not be
charged enough to turn the system on all the way.

I generally agree the MB or the CMOS may be the issue. You can check the hard drive condition by taking it out of the laptop and attaching it to one of those 2.5" drive USB cages/enclosures and then try to see its contents on a desktop or another laptop. Chances are you'll view the contents of the drive just fine.

It could be the power supply, but in my experience, a faulty PS doesn't even get the system to start.

You could also test if the display itself is faulty. I've had a couple LCD's go out and easiest way to confirm is to hook it up to an external monitor. You didn't specify if the LCD even shows anything at all, or has some basic logo/splash screen, so I'm presuming the screen itself is just dark.

Also, for memory issues, generally an error message will be displayed during the BIOS/POST if an error is detected.

Some HP laptops do this when they need to be totally reset. There is a certain key sequence (which I don't recall right now) that will clear this up. You might want to look online for HP reset.

I tried a different power adapter and the results were the same. Thanks for trying.

The system really only tries to start. The power light on the laptop comes on and stays on, and the HD spins (light comes on) for about 2 seconds then stops, and the light goes off.

I doubt tring it on an external monitor will work, as the POST never completes (nothing on the screen, ever) and there are no 'beeps' to indacate that the POST has completed. Thanks for trying.

brentley:
Excelent suggestion. I am at work now and the laptop is at home. So, I'll try and find what the reset sequence is and give it a shot when I get home. Thank you!

Edited to add:
I did some searching on the net and came across another thread about a similar problem. Is some cases it was solved by 'resetting', involving removing the RTC battery for a while. I also found a link to a detailed 'Maintenance and Service' manual that did not come with the laptop explaining where everything is and a schematic for troubleshooting.Surprisingly, it appears that there is a separate external cover for the RTC battery, meaning easy access. So, when I get home tonight from work, this will be the first thign I will do.

Update:
I really thoght that this had a shot, but it failed. I pulled the RTC and the regular battery and let them sit overnignt. Then replaced both. The result was the same. The HD spins for about 2 seconds and then stops. I think it probably is the MB. I'll probably try to find an HP repair location. Thanks to everyone for trying.

I am not familiar with the symtoms you list but I am a big believer in periodically reformating the computer HDD, say every 12-24 mo to avoid problems. I also replace the HDD after 36-48 mo. I replaced my Thinkpad T43 HDD last weeking with a new shiny fast 100GB 7200RPM Hitachi ($150). You can get a used 40GB 5400RPM HDD on ebay for about $25 plus S&H (I just did). Itsa cheap fast way to possibly find a solution.

MisterNice

This isn't a matter of bad data on the HD--it's never getting that far.