[SOLVED] Laptop turns on but black screen and loud fan noise ?

nmvx

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Sep 16, 2019
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The laptop (Lenovo) is 10 years old, but it was working fine until the owner in a bout of anger hit it hard with their fist :)
After that it turns on with black screen, and then after 10-15 seconds starts loud fan noise.

I thought the problem might be that hard drive (no ssd) or RAM might have slipped off.
So I took them out and put back and the laptop turned on and worked for two days.
The third day, it turned on with black screen and loud fan noise again.

The laptop is not broken completely it seems, because after that I took out hard drive and RAM again and put them back.
It worked for 15 minutes and then turned off and again black screen and loud fan noise.

Could experienced members make an educated guess as to what might be the problem? Is it possible to fix it and how?

Edit: Lenovo laptop. It had both discrete and built in video cards (Intel graphics). But the discrete videocard has been fried long ago. I changed the thermopaste on CPU a month ago and then checked the tempretures and they seem ok, so overheating had not caused the problem.

I reinstalled the hard drive and this time made sure to press it hard to the contacts when fixing it with the screw, and after that it is working now for third day in a row. So the problem seems at least temporarily fixed.
 
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Solution
Hard drive wouldn't affect post so that isn't it. I guess RAM is possible but unlikely. You did re-seat anyway.

Quite strange symptoms. Do you know if it has a dedicated video card? Does the BIOS show fan speeds and temps?

Maybe the bearings on the fan went and you only notice as it spins up faster as the laptop heats up. Then video card or CPU is getting hot, leading to loss of display.

If it is has an Intel CPU, you could play around with the SpeedStep feature. I would turn that on and see if that helps. Turning it on will tell the CPU to slow down when not under load, leading to better temps. Most laptops have it enabled to reduce temps. You could test the laptop running on battery only as that also tends to tell the CPU to run...

Marky000

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2013
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18,545
Hard drive wouldn't affect post so that isn't it. I guess RAM is possible but unlikely. You did re-seat anyway.

Quite strange symptoms. Do you know if it has a dedicated video card? Does the BIOS show fan speeds and temps?

Maybe the bearings on the fan went and you only notice as it spins up faster as the laptop heats up. Then video card or CPU is getting hot, leading to loss of display.

If it is has an Intel CPU, you could play around with the SpeedStep feature. I would turn that on and see if that helps. Turning it on will tell the CPU to slow down when not under load, leading to better temps. Most laptops have it enabled to reduce temps. You could test the laptop running on battery only as that also tends to tell the CPU to run slower.

Does the laptop feel hot around the keyboard etc. If so, you might have to open it up and inspect that fan etc.
 
Solution