No Apparent Life

[Mike McCall]

HP Envy x360 m Convertible imitating proverbial doornail.

Initially, the machine's power button would light when pressed, then go off, then on again and finally quit altogether. No POST, beep codes, nothing on the screen, zip. Apparently this is a known issue with these and a hard reset is suggested, which I did. Removed the battery, held the power button down for about 30-seconds, connected the charger (which appears to work as the charging light comes on), and nothing. The power button doesn't light up now. Not finding much beyond a hard reset to try from here. Any suggestions?

 

[phaZed]

Sounds like a MB power issue.. at POST it likely sees this and the MB goes into shutdown.

 

[Mike McCall]

Found the center pin on the charger is bent and spins, so it's broken. This makes the light on the power button make sense if the battery is dead. I don't have anything that will fit it so the customer is getting a replacement as I type this. I'm betting the charger is the issue in this case even though it turns on the charging light on the laptop.

 

[Mike McCall]

Nope, not the charger. Looking for service manual...

 

[Markverhyden]

If you didn't already find the SM.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05747649

 

[Mike McCall]

Yeah, found it, thanks, @Markverhyden.

The Power Jack cable and Power Button are separate in this model, though they're next to each other when installed. The light on the jack comes on, but the light on the power button is sporadic, making me think it may be the problem. I get that it could be the system board and I don't want to just start swapping parts. Is there a way I can isolate the button as the problem or am I stuck replacing the power button, and if that's not it then it's the board?

 

[phaZed]

The light on the button is controlled by the MB, not the button. You can short the sides/legs of the button with metal tweezers to effectively bypass the button.

 

[Mike McCall]

The light on the button is controlled by the MB, not the button. You can short the sides/legs of the button with metal tweezers to effectively bypass the button.

Thanks. No difference = dead board. HP apparently made 8 different boards for this laptop with an i7 and the ones I'm seeing don't look exactly like the one here. I'll have to pull the board I guess to get the part number to get a price for a replacement.

Scary thought: I hope this isn't one which automatically Bitlocker's the drive.

 

[Markverhyden]

If it's a M$ account I think it's pretty certain that it's BL'ed.

 

[Mike McCall]

If it's a M$ account I think it's pretty certain that it's BL'ed.

I don't know for sure, yet, but I put the drive into an adapter and attached it to a laptop. Came up as a storage device with 0bytes available. Usually, I get asked for the BL key.

 

[britechguy]

If it's a M$ account I think it's pretty certain that it's BL'ed.

I have never, and I do mean never, seen BitLocker enabled by default regardless of the account type being used. And I actively discourage my clients from doing drive encryption unless they really, really need it (which is almost no one).

The craze for encrypting anything and everything, with no concern for the difficulties it often ends up causing the end user, needs to be as strongly discouraged as is possible.

 

[Mike McCall]

I don't know for sure, yet, but I put the drive into an adapter and attached it to a laptop. Came up as a storage device with 0bytes available. Usually, I get asked for the BL key.

Edit: this is because it's a SATA ssd not a PCIe NVME/ACHI.

 

[Mike McCall]

I have never, and I do mean never, seen BitLocker enabled by default regardless of the account type being used. And I actively discourage my clients from doing drive encryption unless they really, really need it (which is almost no one).

The craze for encrypting anything and everything, with no concern for the difficulties it often ends up causing the end user, needs to be as strongly discouraged as is possible.

I have seen it and it's scary. The EU has no idea what it means. I had a customer a while back with one. I got lucky and she had printed the keys and was actually able to find them.

 

[britechguy]

I have seen it and it's scary. The EU has no idea what it means. I had a customer a while back with one. I got lucky and she had printed the keys and was actually able to find them.

Most people who are not out to hide something criminal have no idea what it entails. (And I hasten to add that encryption has many valid reasons for use that are not criminal in nature.)

The craze extends to smartphones, too, and there are plenty of examples of tragic failure with zero chance of recovery afterward.

It doesn't take much at all to lose it all secondary to having encrypted that which does not need to be encrypted.

 

[Mike McCall]

Most people who are not out to hide something criminal have no idea what it entails. (And I hasten to add that encryption has many valid reasons for use that are not criminal in nature.)

The craze extends to smartphones, too, and there are plenty of examples of tragic failure with zero chance of recovery afterward.

It doesn't take much at all to lose it all secondary to having encrypted that which does not need to be encrypted.

Of course there's those who BL the drive, don't print the keys, and forget they've done it.

 

[Markverhyden]

I've not seen auto bit locker with a M$ account I never use M$ accounts with customers. But I've seen multiple comments to that effect. But they still need to be W10 Pro or Enterprise

From - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...tlocker-device-encryption-overview-windows-10

Also this - https://www.howtogeek.com/234826/how-to-enable-full-disk-encryption-on-windows-10/



It probably has a TPM chip. Wonder if there is any encryption options in BIOS? SATA should just show up. Try mounting it directly to the SATA bus on a desktop.

 

[Computer Bloke]

Of course there's those who BL the drive, don't print the keys, and forget they've done it.

But that's OK because everyone knows that we either have their password (singular) already or can circumvent it by typing "BYPASS PASSWORD" at the login prompt.

 

[Mike McCall]

Found a board on Fleabay for $325. It's the only one I've seen so far that looks identical to the original. Ouch!

 

[Larry Sabo]

Mike, did you reset the CMOS? Just remove all power input and remove the CMOS battery and short it's terminals on the MB, then re-install it. Probably the MB but it would be a shame to replace the MB if it's just a BIOS freeze/curruption.

 

[Mike McCall]

Mike, did you reset the CMOS? Just remove all power input and remove the CMOS battery and short it's terminals on the MB, then re-install it. Probably the MB but it would be a shame to replace the MB if it's just a BIOS freeze/curruption.

Thought about that last night. Thanks for the reminder!