I am having problems booting up this laptop. When it boots I get the Compaq start up screen but when it goes beyond that I do not get Windows starting up. When I restart it I can get into the BIOS (display works perfect) and reset it to the defaults but on reboot it will not go to operating system. The screen seems to be lit up but I am not getting anything displaying. I have used the diagnostics in the BIOS and both the hard drive and memory pass. I thought it might be the problem people have been having with the Nvidia chip but those people seem to have no video at all. Any ideas? Thanks
you are able to see bios screen.. means either problem is windows itself. or u have a partial chip failure that lets 16 bit colors work but windows uses full driver which might run into chip issues. try booting a live linux and see if it still does bad things. (remove HDD as suggested below) try F8 safemode or low resolution graphics.. in device manager remove video adapter and reboot. (will auto install on boot) also take battery out.. these are known for issues with battery and booting. what bios version ?
I would try another hard drive anyway just to eliminate the currently installed drive is not defective it may check out ok but your fault to me implies possible boot issues and I would first eliminate that from the issue in hand.
I tried booting to both a Linux and windows disk but I got nothing beyond the BIOS screen. Trying F8 is not possible for the same reason I tried a second drive with and without a battery and there was no change. I came to the decision it was a problem with the Nvidia chip. I took the laptop apart down to the motherboard. I put some liquid flux around the chip and surrounded the adjacent area with some heavy duty aluminum foil. I then used my heat gun on low setting and heated up the chip. I did it holding my heat gun about 2 inches away for about 2 minutes. I then let it cool down for a minute then did the same procedure again, except for the flux. I let it cool down for 20 minutes, reassembled the laptop. Pressed the power button, went into the BIOS and reset it and it booted right into Windows. I don't know how long it will last but at least I know the problem, Thanks