Daddy Dee Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 After doing troubleshooting with HP tech support and my son-in-law, have determined that my wife's HP Envy 14 has something bad on the motherboard. It's out of warranty[], so have ordered another laptop. Question is what it might cost to send out for a motherboard replacement job. Can't find info online and phone people won't be on the job til Monday. Any estimates as to price? Any suggestions as to who to send for service? HP or other? Any suggestions welcome. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I can't help you but like I always say throw it away and get a new one with 4 times more technology and create less human stress trying to fix the old one. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo33 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 It may cost anywhere from $100 to $500 in which you're better off buying a new one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 A quick check on ebay shows that it will cost $160 to $180 for the mobo and laptops are a pita to take apart. Then there is probably a good chance it's actually the power supply, can't say, don't know your symptoms. If it was a desktop it would be a no-brainer, but in this case, it maybe time to let things go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted August 11, 2012 Author Share Posted August 11, 2012 Thebes. Really odd symptoms, to me, at least here's the way it went: the intention was simply to restore the HD to factory condition. HP laptops ship with a recovery partition, but when trying to execute this method of recovery, the option was simply greyed out. Would not accept the command to recover. so I ordered the recovery DVDs from HP. Three tasks here: 1. HD reformat. check. 2. Transfer temp files used recover to factory condition. check 3. Temp files write OS and associated files. PROBLEM. This is all done from the HD. DVDs are done. The restore/recover process would write to 12% and then quit. I went through this process three times before I called HP tech support. Upon boot, the screen would say "system restored" and gave a Finish button to click. However, it could not load the system because only 12% had been written. HP diagnostics said HD passed 100% quick test. HP tech support said this indicates that the problem is something bad on the motherboard. I did install a new HD in the off chance that the HD was somehow at fault. Same results. Have been wondering if the fault is with the HP factory restore DVDs. However, they run flawlessly. The problem is when the HD tries to restore from the temp files written to the HD by the DVDs. On all four restore attempts it quit at 12%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Get a new one. You can pull the hard drive out and copy all important data onto a new one, if it hasn't been backed up. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted August 11, 2012 Author Share Posted August 11, 2012 Yes. Thankfully backup is good. No data lost. Have gotten a new laptop on order now. At this point, wondering if the repair can done economically enough to be worth having a backup laptop in the house, or perhaps dedicate it to music. p.s. one other thing: I did try to run Ubuntu Live CD. It would load the menu, but then was not able to load the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 FRYs had a nice HP laptop on sale a week ago for $279. Oh man, up to $299 now. http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/ads/2012/08/10/58568/HP-2000-15-6-Laptop-2A20NR-with-Intel-PDC-B970-Processor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 DD, I just saw your post. Do you have a server at home? If yu do and it is set up for backups, you can completely relaod your entire drive (OS and everything) in about 30 to 45 minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peshewah Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 Its bad ram or a bad sector in your harddrive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 Its bad ram or a bad sector in your harddrive Perhaps... I've had to disassemble laptops dong support where I work and they are quite a pain. Wrestling with an HP laptop this week, under warranty and it is the least user friendly support I've seen. Dell has been super (we normally buy Dell equipment, for laptops and desktops... Apple MacBooks are senaking in, with most servers being Sun). Support on Lenovos has been good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted August 12, 2012 Author Share Posted August 12, 2012 DD, I just saw your post. Do you have a server at home? If yu do and it is set up for backups, you can completely relaod your entire drive (OS and everything) in about 30 to 45 minutes. Wish I did. Mostly use an external HD to back up docs, music and pics. Also have carbonite, but haven't tried to use them for restoring anything. BTW, that is a good price on the laptop at Frys. $100 cheaper than the same at office depot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted August 12, 2012 Author Share Posted August 12, 2012 peshewah. ram and HD pass diagnostics OK. thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 Before tossing the laptop in the corner.... try running / booting from USB. Most all computers now that is an option, but you have to change the settings in the bios when you first fire the unit. For some reason, mine wouldn't boot from CD, but it would from a USB drive. Ensure that the USB has no hidden partition, and the only file on it is the O/S. I would try an older version of Ubuntu, say like 10.04. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo33 Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 First of all, disable quick boot mode in the bios and boot. That should perform a full RAM test. If this pass, then your memory is okay. Next, make a bootable CD linux and boot on your optical drive. If boot fail, then buy a new laptop. Don't bother fixing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest " " Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 Its def better to replace the whole thing than to repair. replacing a main board is pretty expensive in labor in my area. I have a iMac with the exact same problem. I go an esitmate of 600 bucks to replace the main board. I instead hooked an external drive to the firewire poort and set the iMac to use the external port to boot it up. It runs fine with the external drive. It see's the internal drive but the drive performers eratically. So it could be the on board drive controller in my case. Still running the computer with the external drive. not going to bother to fix the main board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 So it could be the on board drive controller in my case. Are you sure it isn't the drive itself? Is this one of the iMacs with the aluminum enclosure? We had three of them (24 inch) that had overheating issues and we lost three drives. They are a pain to get into because the glass has metal tabs glued on them, with magnets holding the glass to the rest of the enclosure. You need suction cup things that glaziers use to remove it (although I have used duct tape with the end folded over to grab onto...) Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 This talks about the need for a hard reset. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01883653&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=5141608#N458 WMcD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peshewah Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 If your laptop has 2 sticks of ram you can try to run just one stick at a time. But before you remove or install any hardware always remove battery first. But try each stick by its self and see what happens. If it runs on one stick then more than likely the other is bad. I was re-formating a desktop and the same thing happened to me. It was a bad stick of ram. Testing each stick can't hurt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Gil and Peshewa, Thanks for the tips on trouble shooting. This has at least been interesting. Learning as I go. Still haven't identified the problem, but haven't given up just yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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