# Laptop wont boot after overheating forced a shutdown -SOLVED

## kingofearth

I was emerging a few packages when my laptop shut off suddenly due to overheating. This has happened many times before and usually I just turn it back on and everything is fine. But after this instance I am no longer able to boot my laptop. After turning it on I hear the fans kick in for a couple seconds like they always do at boot, the hard drive light flashes for a second, and then it just sits there doing nothing. The screen never turns on and there is no evidence of BIOS even loading. Then in order to turn it back off I have to hold the power button for 5 seconds.

My laptop is a core2 duo (not sure which model) which is just over 3 years old, and again, I've been having overheating issues with it for the past year or 2. Do you think I killed my processor? Did my hard drive somehow die when the computer shut off? Do you think if I tried blowing some canned air through the vents that would help, or is it too late for that? Thanks.Last edited by kingofearth on Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:18 am; edited 1 time in total

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## ignislupis

If your laptop is an HP there is one more thing to try. With the power unplugged and the battery removed, hold down the power button for 5-10 sec.. Supposedly this is similar to a cmos reset. 

I had a similar experience with one of my laptops. It was still under warranty so I sent it in and they replaced the motherboard. They did not say what was wrong exactly though. The trick above didn't work in my case but it did on my father's laptop (which is where I got the trick; he got it from HP tech support). 

My brother's laptop has an overheating problem. One of the heat-pipes doesn't work any more. It will only stay running if you have the intake elevated so it can suck enough air into the body to air cool the processor directly. So unless you can see gunk build-up in your intakes or exhausts, it probably won't have any effect if you blow canned air through it. 

If you do get it working again, anytime you are doing high intensity processor stuff you may want to elevate the laptop for good air flow. It worked to get Gentoo on my brother's laptop. Then most normal stuff like surfing the web doesn't shut it down.  Also with a lean Gentoo system it doesn't shut off just sitting idle in the gui like it did in Windows. The power of customization!

I wish you luck an hope this helps.

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## kingofearth

I am happy to report that my computer is now back up and running. The problem turned out to be a faulty RAM chip. I also cleaned out the fan in the laptop and I got a pretty decent lump of dust and hair out of there, so my laptop is now running quieter and cooler than it has in years.

So if anyone else has a problem where their computer won't boot up and the screen wont turn on, but the computer still powers up, try checking your RAM. Try booting with each stick of RAM by itself and see if any of them work. That's what my roommate suggested to me and on my first try I was greeted with a BIOS splash screen followed by GRUB.

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