HP Pavilion Dv7

[redagent001]

I received a laptop that will not show any kind of video onscreen. The situation is their screen is damage but it work fine with an external monitor. I had recently cleaned it out (tuneup). Owner verified a machine working so much smoother.

However, today its back with me for this issue of which he is under the impression his nephew messed it up again.

The problem now is it wont load or start. I mean it turns on. But No image. The CAPS LOCK blinks continuously. The WIFI orange light is solid and stays on. Tried some recommended methods like allowing it to over heat and letting it sit. No go. Tried re-seating the RAM, blowing it out, re-seating the HDD, taking the CMOS battery out and battery and let that sit.

I can hear the fans now, but CAPS LOCK blinks while WIFI orange light stays solid. At this point, I feel this is the end of it.

What do you all think I can try. I have checked so many things online but they all say the same thing. Let it overheat with a blanket, and of course I get a lot of "oh that's the same issue i have" with no other good suggestions.

 

[River Valley Computer]

You're fighting an uphill battle. Those were notorious for this very problem. Even if overheating work, it will happen again. Don't buy another motherboard either as they will have the same issue eventually. Time for new notebook.

 

[Markverhyden]

Yep, those HP DV's, along with other models, including those from Dell are a curse. Problems with the NVidia chipset. While there are those that have re-balled the boards, added copper shims for cooling, they are still a loosing proposition.

 

[redagent001]

That was my fear. I'll break the news to him. And see what he wants to do from here. Thanks. I did't want to waist anymore time if I didn't have to. I will have the talk with him.

 

[Diggs]

It's an ATI Radeon video chip and we've re-flowed (we don't re-ball) quite a few of them now with good results. But Mark is right, it's not a long term solution. We tell the customer it gives them enough time to get another laptop and get their stuff transferred over. The increased cooling with the copper shim over the OEM snot shim helps with cooling and choosing a shim a few .001"s thicker keeps down force on the graphics chip into the motherboard. After doing it a few times it only takes us an hour or less and we do it a bit as a service to help out the customer. Results are good but we tell the customer it's a "Hail-Mary" as they say in the states and the fail clock is ticking on their laptop.

 

[cypress]

It's unfortunate that as soon as you see DV7 it's pretty much a lost cause. That model of laptop is complete garbage.

 

[brandonkick]

It's unfortunate that as soon as you see DV7 it's pretty much a lost cause. That model of laptop is complete garbage.

It is actually, HP should have to replace any of those junkers with a modern day equivalent.....

It's like buying a TV and getting a box full of rocks....

 

[thecomputerguy]

The DV7 is the one reason why I tell people to stay away from HP laptops. After being in this industry for 15 years and seeing how poorly engineered the DV7 was, along with its larger 17" version, I was just left with a bad taste in my mouth about HP laptops and how HP handled it.

The design flaw from what I remember was that the video chip was on the same heat sink as the CPU, so the CPU generates a ton of heat, then carries it over to the GPU before the heat gets blown out of the laptop by a fan which causes the GPU to burn out.