Dead Compaq PResario 1200 Laptop??

**hccmac** · June 14th, 2004, 09:34 PM

Relative's Compaq Presario 1200 laptop quit working.....power on and power light comes on...no beeps or display...nothing. Can put in CD and it will spin, but no display or sound...nothing. If leave on long enough the cooling fan will start running.....Whats Up??? anyone know...dead hard drive, cpu, motherboard or what. Local store wants $60.00 just to diagnose........How can they diagnose if nothing working????.........HELP

**TripleRLtd** · June 14th, 2004, 09:42 PM

What they can do is determine whether or not it is a dead mainboard: which at first glance of the symptons seems to be the problem. But, you just don't know for sure until you get up close and personal: if you know what I mean.
Rest assured that any data on the hard drive will be safe though. Sorry!

**silencio** · June 14th, 2004, 10:34 PM

Warranty?

Get a compaq/hp case number after you send it in. Many repair shops suck balls and will string you along for weeks.

**TripleRLtd** · June 14th, 2004, 10:36 PM

Sad, and oh so true!!!

**figglywig** · February 8th, 2005, 11:47 AM

I went through this, too, with my husband's laptop. I have some troubleshooting stuff on my website at EDITED that might help, and you can follow the hp forums thread, although they edit off posts they don't like (like if you put your email address in them!). You can view the hp thread at http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/f...threadId=36917. There is a BIOS chip problem - some people have a corrupted BIOS program, and they can still power up and flash the BIOS - my husband's laptop was totally dead and needed a new chip. I found a guy on the hp forum in Italy who repaired the mobo, and he is sending me some pre-programmed chips. I am going to try to fix a guy's who will send it to me from Illinois, and there are 3 more that I know of in Seymour, IN, that I might get to work on, too. If you need the chip, let me know. Chip and socket should be about $15-20, depending on exchange rate from Euros at the time I buy 'em.

***DonJ*** · February 8th, 2005, 12:27 PM

btw, you can find Presario 12XL and 1200xx Series System ROM Update here. It is needed for Win2000 and WinXP.

You can also find Parts Breakdowns for Presario 1200's here. Just follow the link for your correct model number.

Also, Manuals for the Compaq Presario 1200 Notebook PC series.

**david1994** · April 3rd, 2005, 06:59 PM

This is what fixed mine. I took the battery out and unpluged the laptop first. Turned it over - there are two removable covers, (about 3" x 3" plastic) held with one small phillips screw. Exposing printed circuit boards. I unplugged the one covered with plastic. There are two small clips on the edges that hold the board in. I had this board unplugged for about 15 minutes. I did this trying to find a fuse, but no fuse, so I put it back together, plugged it in and turned it on. To my great surprise it worked. powered up with no problems. I have been using it for about 4 days, powered up and shut down several times.My guess is that unplugging the board unlocked it. Good luck
Dave