weird startup issue

[csi1189]

i have an old hp compaq nc6000 that used to have xp pro on it, then had a new harddrive put in along with more ram. now it has xp home. runs fine. excpet one thing. it seemingly only starts up when i have in plugged in to ac power. otherwise, i get this on the screen right after the winxp logo boot screen:



what you are seeing is two vertical bars on the screen being displayed in place of the welcome screen...

possibly my battery needs replacing? but the thing is, once it's powerd up, i can unplug and it will last for up to 3.5 hours on a single fully-charged battery. and also it can sometimes start up unplugged but only if its completely charged and i have enough willpower to make it do so. now i have no idea what's going on here. any ideas??

 

[starcab]

It might be battery problem but it also might be a monitor problem.It whould be a good idea to talk to hp service departement.Maybe the can fix it.

 

[Archangel]

im curious... how does the laptop react when you run something that loads it to 100% while it run's on hit battery only? because the problem could indeed be the battery beeing too weak to power the system under full load ( wich it is at startup as far as i know)

 

[csi1189]

im curious... how does the laptop react when you run something that loads it to 100% while it run's on hit battery only? because the problem could indeed be the battery beeing too weak to power the system under full load ( wich it is at startup as far as i know)

well i use this laptop often for work purposes - a.k.a. photoshop running most of the time with music playing and firefox open with several tabs. i know photoshop can take up a lot of cpu power, but with the other stuff running, im not exactly sure how it reacts under pure battery power. i will need to check this out when i use it next - but i suppose it makes sense that the battery is just too weak, although the system is only about 3-4 years old? could it really have gotten that weak in just that amount of time?

 

[tlarkin]

i hate to tell you this, but its probably the video card, ie the motherboard.

A good way to test if its the motherboard or the LCD itself is to hook up the laptop to an external monitor via the video out and see if the problem duplicates or not.

What happens when you hook up the external video?

 

[csi1189]

i hate to tell you this, but its probably the video card, ie the motherboard.

A good way to test if its the motherboard or the LCD itself is to hook up the laptop to an external monitor via the video out and see if the problem duplicates or not.

What happens when you hook up the external video?

hmm interesting... i plugged it into an external monitor and booted it up with the lid closed so that it would display nothing in its own screen, and everything worked beautifully. just before this, i booted up by itself and same problem as before - yet it goes away when on an external monitor... so now what doest his mean?

 

[tlarkin]

hmm interesting... i plugged it into an external monitor and booted it up with the lid closed so that it would display nothing in its own screen, and everything worked beautifully. just before this, i booted up by itself and same problem as before - yet it goes away when on an external monitor... so now what doest his mean?

If it works on an external monitor just fine then the video chipset is most likely good and its your screen thats the problem.

 

[csi1189]

so is there any easy way to fix it then? or must i just deal with my current solution - to start up while plugged in..

 

[SirKenin]

To me that says that your laptop isn't feeding enough power to the screen. It is interesting that it gets enough current when it's plugged directly into the wall.

 

[csi1189]

To me that says that your laptop isn't feeding enough power to the screen. It is interesting that it gets enough current when it's plugged directly into the wall.

thats what i was originally thinking, and the reason why i thought i may need a new battery to solve my issues.. but maybe not.

 

[SirKenin]

You might very well need a new battery. Just because a battery supplies voltage does not necessarily mean it supplies current.

 

[csi1189]

i guess i'll have to check all this with hp see what they think - it seems the best course of action for now..

 

[SirKenin]

Yup. Give them a call... Tell them you used your battery in your remote control car and once you put it back in the laptop it didn't work anymore.

 

[johnsmith]

Contact the HP, don't hurry to buy a new battery, it may not be the solution. Them after buying the battery the problem may still persist...and you will still need to contact HP.