Cheverge

This is my wife's laptop, it is a Gateway MX3416. It is a few years old, but I have upgraded the cpu and the ram. It has been fine for years, never really had any problems out of it then today she was using it and the screen just turned off, not went black and still on, totally off bit the leds were still on on the front of the laptop. I already tried taking the battery out and holding the power button down for 30 seconds etc and it didn't work, I also tried to hook it up to and external monitor, and hit function and F1 ( which is what i think you have to do to switch it to external monitor) and nothing. I also tried each stick of ram individually, as it has 2 1gig sticks. ANY help will be much appreciated. The leds come right on and you can hear/feel the HD, but i think the cpu fan isn't starting up, but that could just be me i haven't used it in awhile to know how it starts up.

Madcatz

first thing, when you did the hard reset, did you unhook the ac adapter along with removing the battery?

when you tried each stick of ram individually, did you try each one in both slots? do you have other memory sticks you can try that are the same kind? It problaby uses PC2-4200 or 5300, if it uses one of those, either one should work.

You can also try removing the hard drive and cd rom drive, see if it works that way.

Cheverge

Yes I removed the ac adapter as well, I didnt try the ram i both slots but I'll do that now, also will it boot up at all without the HD, i didnt relize it would but I'll try that as well. Thanks Ill let you know what happens.

Madcatz

it won't boot into windows, but it still will give you the Gateway logo screen at the begining, and thats what we really want to see atm.

Cheverge

Well tried all that, none worked at all. :( I dont have another stick of ram to try, but its Crucial ram, I wouldnt think both sticks would go bad at the same time? maybe though?

Madcatz

its not common for both sticks to go bad, but it can happen.

try powering it on with no memory in it, see if any of the lights flash or if it gives you any beeps.

have the ac adapter tested to make sure its putting out the proper voltage and not flucuating.

also try it on ac adapter power only, no battery. try removing everything else you can, wireless card, modem card, any cables/wires (touchpad, hotkeys, all that) take it down to only motherboard, memory, ac adapter, power switch, and lcd panel. see if you get anything that way, if not, then unplug the lcd cable and try it again on an external monitor (and plug the external video cable back in if this unit has one). if still nothing, then i would get ahold of another stick of memory (if you havn't already) if still nothing, then i'd start looking at at replacing the motherboard.

Cheverge

I trid it without any ram, nothing. Shouldnt I get a error beep of somesort or no?

Cheverge

There is a white and black wire running from the lcd to some sort of cart in a slot in the motherboard, do you know what this is for? NVMD Thats the wireless card.

Cheverge

If the cpu was bad would the screen still light up or no?

Madcatz

really depends on the way the cpu went bad, but very rarely does a cpu go bad. sometimes the computer won't even turn on, or no display, or won't see certain ports or slots, won't boot if something is in a certain port or slot. but like I said, very rare for a cpu to go bad.

for memory, normally yes you should have at least gotten something, sometimes its beeps, sometimes its a light flashing, if the BIOS was seeing no memory.

Cheverge

So since it didnt beep or anything the motherboard is prolly bad then? only 4 years old sucks.

Madcatz

most likely, yes its probably the motherboard. but, honestly, 4 years isn't too bad out of a laptop, thats about normal. Alot better than having to replace the motherboard within the first year.