Question Laptop doesn't turn on

[leonhk]

So, I have a problem with my Lenovo Thinkpad L430 (3 years old)

It sometimes turns on and sometimes doesn't. When it doesn't turn on, the power button lights up but there is no display on the screen.

However, sometimes it turns on if I try and works smoothly like it is supposed to. But, will revert to the same state after rebooting/powering off.


Symptoms:

1. Sometimes turns on by chance but usually, the screen stays black and the power button does light up.

2. Fans are running sometimes.

3. The charging light(on the back) lights up after I try to turn it on. When the charging indicator lights up, the laptop doesn't turn on.


Things I have already tried:

1. Reseated RAMs after cleaning.

2. Checked the thermal paste and replaced the thermal paste.

3. Changed RAM.

4. Checked power adapter and with the external display, doesn't work with external display either.

5. I have even reseated my display cables and checked if there was a problem there.

6. Tried turning on with/without SSD hard drive and DVD drive.


I am thinking that something is wrong with the motherboard. But, why does it turn on occasionally? Or, could it be because of possibly malfunctioning capacitor in power IC stuff? I did check the board for the heat to find possibly busted ICs but didn't find any?


I haven't updated the Bios because the restart doesn't work and I am not able to boot up BIOS with DVD-Drive.


What do I do?

 

[webworkings]

Sounds like it isn't the laptop but perhaps the display. That or a combination of problems.

Try this...

1. Turn the laptop off (not sleep or hibernate but off).
2. Connect an external monitor to the laptop.
3. Turn on the external monitor.
4. Turn on the laptop.

NOTE: You may have to press an "external monitor" button. Could be the f4 button or a button with two monitors on it, for the external monitor to work.

If you can see fine on the external monitor, then your attached display, or the ribbon cable that connects it, are your problem.

If you can't see on the external monitor at all, or the problem occurs on the external monitor as well, then it is probably the graphics card/GPU that is the problem, which may require the motherboard be replaced.

You may also want to try hitting CTRL + SHIFT + WIN + B to try and reset your graphics driver as another possible fix.

 

[leonhk]

Sounds like it isn't the laptop but perhaps the display. That or a combination of problems.

Try this...

1. Turn the laptop off (not sleep or hibernate but off).
2. Connect an external monitor to the laptop.
3. Turn on the external monitor.
4. Turn on the laptop.

NOTE: You may have to press an "external monitor" button. Could be the f4 button or a button with two monitors on it, for the external monitor to work.

If you can see fine on the external monitor, then your attached display, or the ribbon cable that connects it, are your problem.

If you can't see on the external monitor at all, or the problem occurs on the external monitor as well, then it is probably the graphics card/GPU that is the problem, which may require the motherboard be replaced.

You may also want to try hitting CTRL + SHIFT + WIN + B to try and reset your graphics driver as another possible fix.

I've done everything but nothing works. Now, it seems to have gotten a new problem where if I plug in RAM it keeps turning on and off. I've checked the RAM and both sticks are fine. I've tried every possible combination for RAM too.
I think there might be something wrong with the motherboard. The only thing I don't understand is how the [] does it turn on and work normally sometimes.

 

[webworkings]

It does sound like the problems are escalating. You may want to have it looked at.

 

[leonhk]

It does sound like the problems are escalating. You may want to have it looked at.

Well, I have a repair shop.
Now, trying to find shorts in the motherboard.