No Display after long term death

[Nippon777]

Friend of mine handed over a laptop to me. He lost the power adapter and got another one for a gift so I bought one for the one he gave me.

Its a HP ZE5200 I believe. Anyway I finally bought the charger from Fry's electronics today and started it right away to make sure its the correct wattage (90W). Anyway I start it up... all the LED's come to life but there is no display. I dont hear any beeping of a POST, just no display. I try to toggle on the display button with (fn+5) I think it still no display. I try the brightness and yet no display. Is there something else I can do to verify if the screen has died over the time its had no power or... is my screen just dead on the water and I just spent 150 for an adapter for no reason.

(you can tell this is my first laptop).

Thanks in advance.

[ikenfixit.com]

Plug it into external monitor and see if it fires up w/boot.. Otherwise its most likely not POST'ing And theres a hardware fault. You may try swaping CPU's and Memory but its sounding to me like it overheated at one point in time and is going to need a component level repair. Weve done ton of these as well as all brands and they are failing in high numbers. If you need help give us a buzz for a free asessment or instructions for basic troubleshooting.
Ken LaDere
-<LINK REMOVED>-

[Nippon777]

Thanks for the quick reply. well after I posted, I tried holding down the reset button on the bottom of the lap top for a few seconds and it didnt work. I drove off somewhere and came back to let it charge. I unplugged the charger and it refused to turn on. Its as if the battery would not hold a charge for even a second. I was gone for about 1.5 hours and left it charging. I finally tried pluging up my multiSync crt to the vga port in back of the laptop and still no video on bootup. I left it to charge again...

[Paleo Pete]

ikenfixit: If you want to answer questions here, fine, we welcome the assistance. But this is not the place to do your advertising for your business. If that was acceptable, I would be advertising mine too. You'll notice I have no links in my posts to my computer repair shop, never have, never will. Nor does anyone else here do any advertising.

Drop the link and the sales pitch, it won't work here on the forums and any more will be considered spam.

[david eaton]

Nippon777. One possibility is that the laptop battery is completely dead. That would explain why nothing happens - the battery won't charge, and acts as a short circuit preventing powerup. Try removing the battery, and powering up with the mains adaptor.
If the computer then runs, you need a new battery as well.

[Nippon777]

Hi Dave. I've tried what you mentioned last night before I went to sleep. I tried the test light on the battery and absolutely nothing came up after 4 hours of supposed charging.

I've tried several times to remove the batter and power it up directly from the adaptor. I see all led's come to life and such. but I hear no POST "beep". I wonder if there are cases where some laptops will NOT boot up without a battery.

Also... the charge LED blinks when the adapter is plugged in. Not a constant amber light. I'm going to take it to best buy or compUSA. If they'll agree to stick a battery into the computer from their help desk and if the computer boots up, I'll buy a new battery there on the spot. But I just want to do this as a process of elimination. If a working battery does not change anything, then I know its a mechanical failure in which I'm not willing to invest on because I recieved this from a friend for free.

[david eaton]

It may be that your laptop needs a battery in order to work. Your idea of trying a new battery sounds like a good idea, as it certainly looks as if the existing battery is completely dead!

While you are checking that, it would be as well to change the CMOS batteryl. This is probably on its way out too.

[Nippon777]

tis most likely true about the cmos battery. Hmmm I'm wondering if either Best Buy, CompUSA, Curcuit City, or Fry's Electronics help desk has an extra battery that works that I could pop in. If it was the case of the batter, I'd buy one there on the spot.

P. S. I never KNEW how PRICEY batteries and adapters were for laptops. But then again I can relate an ac adapter to a conventional powersupply for an ATX tower. Which rounds out about the same price.

[sgelston]

I have the same laptop, and am having the exact same problem with it. The lights come on. Then, just as the numlock and caps lock keys blink, the fans turn off and the laptop just sits there. The screen never comes on, and there are no beep codes or anything. It is not a battery issue, as I have another hp laptop with the same battery, and it didn't make a difference when I swapped them. Please post your findings, as I would like to know what the problem is. I currently have my whole laptop disassembled down to the motherboard. I checked the cpu, but have not actually seen what a burned up cpu looks like. It looks slightly discolored and there are not markings visable on it anymore. Please keep me updated.

Thanks