HP zv6130us Laptop Blinking Light

[Pc Fixed Right]

I received a HP zv 6130 US laptop for repair the other day. I am hoping someone here can help me . When the laptop boots I can access bios change boot order etc but no matter what I do when the laptop boots there is a blinking _ at the top left corner of the screen when the computer attempts to boot. Anyone have any idea whats going on? thank you in advance

 

[Justin]

I received a HP zv 6130 US laptop for repair the other day. I am hoping someone here can help me . When the laptop boots I can access bios change boot order etc but no matter what I do when the laptop boots there is a blinking _ at the top left corner of the screen when the computer attempts to boot. Anyone have any idea whats going on? thank you in advance

I've had this issue with a Dell OEM version of XP MCE. It would stay at that screen for several minutes then boot normally. After a few cycles like that, the problem never returned. I would be interested to hear what happens with this.

 

[Bryce W]

Are you able to access the safe mode boot menu (F8)? Even if you cant actually boot into safe mode.

I had a Vista machine doing this to me 2 days ago. It wouldnt boot into safe mode but it DID show me which file it was getting stuck on. Knowing which file it gets stuck on helps alot with diagnosis.

 

[Pc Fixed Right]

No go Bryce the machine does not give me access to the safe mode boot menu. Here are a few things I have done.

1. I scanned the customers hard drive via a usb plug to my machine to see if there are any bad sectors. No bad sectors showed up using HD Tune (latest version)
2. Replaced Hard Drive and in an attempt at a clean install. The laptop did not boot to the Windows XP cd even though it spun it. The laptop stops at the _ cursor on the top left of screen.
3. I changed the memory and all the parts I could but the laptop remains at the _ cursor
4. I have googled the problem but was unable to pinpoint any specifics

Anyone have any ideas I am stumped at this point.

 

[hawks5999]

can you boot from a bootable cd os? how about any pxe/netboot possibility for you? can you boot the hard drive (at least to the OS choice menu or white progress bar) on another machine? Is your boot cd guaranteed known good?

if none of this works and you have definitely ruled out improper bios settings and RAM and hard drive, you are down to a motherboard issue. any chance whatsoever this is under warranty?

 

[Justin]

The only other thing I would try is setting up a drive with a clean OS install in another computer and trying that in the affected machine. It sounds like the MB may be toast though.

 

[Pc Fixed Right]

I am pretty conviced at this point the motherboard is toast. The customer has finally told me that he had a power outage and that the machine shut down and did not come back up properly. I was a bit confused since the laptop does have a working battery which would not typically cause a machine to shutoff in the event of a power outage. Thank you guys for your help.

 

[tkrabec]

try ubcd4win or bartpe and see if you can boot.

 

[iladelf]

Yes, sometimes our customers are not forthright about what may have caused their issue in the first place. Makes our jobs tougher, for sure. I try to explain that I'm not going to scold or blame anyone, I just need as much information as possible to repair the computer properly.

 

[Pc Fixed Right]

I tried windows pe and barts pe with a no go on the machine. thank you guys

 

[Pc Fixed Right]

I got a little bored today so I took the whole notebook apart and reseated everything including the processor. I put the whole thing back together and fired it up and the machine still had the same problem of a blinking cursor. The screen, ram and cpu all work so it has to be the board. Anyone need parts lol =)