Compaq Evo n1020v Laptop - Won't Boot

[Cyber Akuma]

I reecently receieved this laptop as a hand me down.

Problem is the laptop seems to only boot when it feels like it.

Sometimes it will start up (though it won't get far as I haven't installed an OS on it yet) but the vast majority of the time nothing happens.

I press the power button, I can hear the fan spinning up, I see the power light come on..... but no beeps and no image on the screen.

The vast majority of the times I attempt to boot it, its like this, the damn thing actually displaying an image on-screen and getting as far as trying to boot a corrupted version of XP before it bluescreens and reboots.... which then usually results it in rebooting with no image again.

I tried plugging in an external moniter, thinking the screen is damaged, but nothing.

I tried replacing the memory, nothing.

I even tried booting it with no memory but I got no error beeps.

I have no idea what it could be at this point, any ideas what I can try to do to fix it?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

The board may be bad. There's not any way you can RMA it is there?

[Cyber Akuma]

No, I can't RMA. The warranty expired long ago and it was given to me, I didn't purchase it.

I tried to google it and saw a few others with the exact same problem but nobody mentioned anything they could try to troubleshoot.

[gnuman]

When you have the no image on screen does it show an image when hooked up to an external monitor? It sounds like the same recall for the dv6000/dv9000 with the no image on screen issue.

[Cyber Akuma]

I said I tried that, nope, no image on external moniter either.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

did you try taking the hard drive out?

does the power connection look ok?

[Cyber Akuma]

I can't enter Cmos because there is no image.

As I said, sometimes it will satart booting, but the vast majority of the time there is no image on-screen.

I was able to make an image appear and quickly pressed F10 to enter the cmos, however, right after I made it to the Cmos settings screen it froze and there was a few thin vertival lines of garbled graphics across the cmos screen.

[Cyber Akuma]

Being unable to do anything from the outside, I dissessembled the Laptop.... mostly. I didn't want to remove the metal plate over the motherboard because it also has the CPU heatsink attached to it, and I don't want to clean it off then re-grease and re-apply it unless I absolutely have to.

I recalled a slight rattling sound from before I opened it, but I dismissed it, that could have been anything.

When I opened it however I specifically remember carefully removing every screw as I took it out, except for the massive screws on the outside of the case that I took out at once, and these were far too small to be from outside the case.

Could it have been shorting out from screws bouncing around inside it? They look like they were covered in a thin coat of paint since they are darkish brown/black, so I didn't think they could be conductive.... how could somebody even manage to get those in there? None of the external ports are open to the inside... maybe I knocked them loose from their sockets while opening it.... if they weren't originally there.

Anyway, I doubt the scews were there to begin with, even if it seems likely.

Since its already open, before I seal it up, is there anything you can reommend I look into or try to check if its damaged or connected properly before I seal it back up? and hope it still powers on after I reassemble it?