Laptop suddenly died and won't restart

[Bitey]

I have an old optimus II 17.3 " gaming laptop bought from this site about 3 or 4 years ago. Its had a few issues over that time- mainly to do with overheating of the power supply- its melted a couple of connections and the guy who repaired it reckoned the parts used were at the very limit of their tolerances for the power they were drawing...

Anyhow this time I was just playing a bit of skyrim, I whacked the table i had my laptop on with my knee (not too hard) and there was a slight cracking sound and the laptop died. It was kinda like when the power supply cuts out- i didn't have the battery in and was running straight off the mains so at first i thought i'd just knocked the connection out but then I found i couldn't restart. I tried with and without the battery in and also tried with a different PSU but I just cant get my machine running again.

I had hoped that maybe it was the fuse in the powerplug but as my laptop still wont start with another power supply and my psu does charge my bother's laptop I'm worried that it must be a problem with the laptop itself. Does anyone have any idea what may be at issue/ how to go about resolving it- its out of warranty with pc specialist.

Also i've been stupidly complacent with backups and whilst i do have one, its probably over a year old!- if it comes to it, does anyone know roughly how much hard-drive recovery costs as I may potentially get a new machine...

thanks

 

[mantadog]

The hard drive is probably perfectly fine. You can buy an enclosure and just transfer it via USB or slot it into a new machine and 99% sure the data will be intact.

it sounds like something was loose and knocking it finished it off causing it to short out and damage something. What exactly I'm not sure, but for it to be so sudden and show no life I think the motherboard might be gone.

 

[mrducking]

from what you say it can only be 2 things: the power jack/input/whateveryoucallit of the laptop (the hole where you put your charger cable), or related to this
or you shorted the motherboard, which can mean anything from "you just fried your motherboard" to "you fried your motherboard, your cpu and your ram"
to be on the safe side, try checking ram and HDD in another pc to see if they are fine, and cpu if you think you can do it without risk
you could also check the motherboard around the power jack to see if there is any burnt spot

 

[Bitey]

Well I've had a look at I cant see any obvious scorching, unfortunately I dont have any alternate machine (nor the technical know-how) to try swapping out the RAM etc to see if the separate elements still work

thing is I can remember when the power jack did burn out, pc specialist said I'd have to replace the motherboard which would be £250 (i ended up getting it repaired locally with a new power connection for a fraction of that) but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that much to repair a laptop I've already had problems with....

I'm kinda tempted to get a gaming mini pc with one of the new nvidia GTX 750 Ti cards- should be doable for around £750 methinks. If this is the case how salvageable are parts like RAM and graphics cards from my old laptop _ i have 8gb of decent ram in there- am I right in thinking that laptop RAM wont work in a destop? but perhaps it could be sellable to recoup some money?

A gaming laptop still just isn't really a practical thing and as I mostly use it at a table anyway i figure a portable(ish) mini pc will be better value.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Laptop parts are a different format to desktop, but yes, you could sell off the ram and even the dead chassis on ebay or somewhere. People will buy stuff for parts to replace components like screen, cpu etc.

 

[mrducking]

go for the mini pc and sell the components you wont use

 

[Bitey]

One other thing I was wondering- you're allowed to install windows operating systems on different machines arent you- so the copy of windows 7 I got new with my laptop could be installed onto a new desktop right? or would I have to buy the bloody thing again?

 

[mrducking]

im pretty sure you can install your copy of windows in whichever machine you want, unless something changed in the last few of which im not aware

 

[Rakk]

im pretty sure you can install your copy of windows in whichever machine you want, unless something changed in the last few of which im not aware

Only if it is a retail copy, OEM copies of Win7 (and older Windows OS's) are limited to the machine with which they were bought with, not sure about Win8 - it may not be so limited - haven't really checked.

 

[mantadog]

Windows 8 is a bit different in that you can transfer it to a new machine or even another person so long as you destroy the original installation. I only found this out recently, but apparently after checking again it is true.

windows 7 is tied to the motherboard of the system you bought, unless its a retail copy.

 

[SpyderTracks]

That's right, the new oem license is:

Windows 8 System Builder Product--Personal Use License

Can I transfer the software to another computer or user? You may transfer the software to another computer that belongs to you. You may also transfer the software (together with the license) to a computer owned by someone else if a) you are the first licensed user of the software and b) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. To make that transfer, you must transfer the original media, the certificate of authenticity, the product key and the proof of purchase directly to that other person, without retaining any copies of the software. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came on to transfer the software. Anytime you transfer the software to a new computer, you must remove the software from the prior computer. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between computers. You may transfer Get Genuine Windows software, Pro Pack or Media Center Pack software only together with the licensed computer.

Source: http://personaluselicense.windows.com/en-US/default.aspx

 

[Bitey]

I'm not quite sue about the differences between retail and non-retail versions of windows- I got 7 as part of the bundle with my laptop from pcspecialist- does this count as a retail version?

 

[mantadog]

I'm not quite sue about the differences between retail and non-retail versions of windows- I got 7 as part of the bundle with my laptop from pcspecialist- does this count as a retail version?

Nope, it will be an OEM copy and tied to the motherboard of the machine you purchased.

 

[Bitey]

One other thing i was wondering- how likely is it i'll be able to sell on the second hand parts from my laptop, will anybody feasibly want 8gb of RAM or a gt555m graphics card?
Would ebay be the best avenue to go down and how much could I conceivably get for them?

thanks

 

[mantadog]

People will buy em for sure, but your best bet is to sell the chassis for spares or repairs. That way you don't rick damage to sensitive components in transit, well not so much risk anyway...

 

[Bitey]

In which case I'll presumably have to get data scrubbed from the hard-drive? or perhaps can i just remove it separately and keep it? ...just thinking about data security....

 

[mantadog]

You can scrub data from the disk, but for all its worth id just keep the disk separate. its common practice and no one will care.

 

[Bitey]

Ok Ok so I think I've worked out what I'll do- I'll get meself the replacement mini pc, then see about taking the hard drive from my laptop and putting it into an external enclosure (never heard of these before- only just read up about them) and then theoretically I should be able to transfer any data I want from the laptop HD myself.

Then I can just sell the remnants as spares on ebay...

thanks for all the help, I think I've finally got a plan, now I just have to decide on how to configure my new rig!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ok Ok so I think I've worked out what I'll do- I'll get meself the replacement mini pc, then see about taking the hard drive from my laptop and putting it into an external enclosure (never heard of these before- only just read up about them) and then theoretically I should be able to transfer any data I want from the laptop HD myself.

Then I can just sell the remnants as spares on ebay...

thanks for all the help, I think I've finally got a plan, now I just have to decide on how to configure my new rig!

Good plan, that's the way I'd do it. If you want to format (erase) your old drive once you've transferred it, you can install ccleaner on your new PC, plugin the external caddy with the old drive and secure erase through ccleaner (industry renowned erase method with up to 7 passes I think). That's about the best way to truly wipe it except for doing a low level format (writes zero's to every part of the drive) which you'd be able to do perhaps with the drive manufacturers tool such as seagates SeaTools for DOS or Data Lifeguard for Western Digital etc...

Western Digital tools: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/1211/c/130/p/227,294

Seagate Tools: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/203931en

CCleaner: https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

 

[keynes]

One other thing i was wondering- how likely is it i'll be able to sell on the second hand parts from my laptop, will anybody feasibly want 8gb of RAM or a gt555m graphics card?
Would ebay be the best avenue to go down and how much could I conceivably get for them?

thanks

I doubt you will sell the gt 555m since it is likely to be soldered into the motherboard and mobile GPUs are very difficult to sell since it is quite specific to certain chassis. You could try to sell the ram and the hard drive but don't think you will get much for those