Pavilion dv5 won't turn on

[jnilsson618]

I have an old Pavilion dv5. I decided to try and fire it up just for kicks. when I plug the ac adapter in, the battery LED turns on white and then switches to amber. when I press the power button, nothing happens except the hard drive light turns on both colors at the same time. No fan or hard drive spinup, nothing on screen.

 

[Saga Lout]

Try removing the battery and just power up using mains electricity.

The battery may be so dead it can't pass sufficient power to run the whole system, including spinning the disk.

 

[jnilsson618]

I tried doing that, but I got the same results. Also, I put in the disk drive and now when I turn it on, the disk drive turns on too, along with any usb devices I plug in

 

[Saga Lout]

I think you should remove the hard drive out of there if you have any crucial data on the disk. All these failed startups could be harming your chances of getting those data back intact.

It would also point to whether it's the cause of the problem.

 

[jnilsson618]

I replaced the hard drive, which solved the problem of the hard drive not spinning up, but the hard drive light still turns on when I turn it on, and the fan doesn't turn on. also the screen doesn't do anything and when I plug in a monitor, nothing shows up on it. Is this a bad motherboard?

 

[Saga Lout]

If there's more than one RAM stick, it's worth removing each in turn to see if the other can make a better job of booting up. All in all though, it doesn't seem to have much of a future.

 

[jnilsson618]

I figured out two problems. First, my charger was only outputting 14.5 volts when it should have been outputting 18.5 volts. second, it worked when I let the battery get completely charged on a working charger.

 

[Saga Lout]

You nailed it - nice fix.