big_c_snow

Hello all, I have an HP ZE4800, and I believe it has a problem... When I try to turn it on, it will go into standby (wherein the power light flashes on and off repeatedly) and, no matter how hard I try, I have to wait approximately 10 minutes to get it to turn on. Upon its turning on, one of three things will happen. If plugged in, it will turn on, act like it's going to boot, then click and immediately turn off. If unplugged, it will either successfully boot or do the same click-then-death action.

Some background: I got the laptop from a friend in a bunch of pieces, then pieced it together using a parts laptop and a power jack bought online. This laptop has not seen an easy life, and none of the USB ports in the back or the serial port works. I soldered on the replacement power jack myself, so the quality of the repair is shady.

My question is, does the aforementioned click-then-die action mean that my laptop is as good as dead? Do the non-working ports in the back have anything to do with anything? If it is dead, what would be a cheap laptop mainly used for surfing internet, word processing, and interacting with a networked XP box? Thanks