Laptop with complex display problem. Could use some help :)

[dude7691]

Hey guys, first a little history of the problem I'm having.

I got this Lenovo Ideapad z500 over 4 years ago, and around the third year of me owning it, a piece of debris got stuck in the fan, no problem, removed it and carried on as normal. Then a second problem arose a few months after, the computer display would not show when I pressed the power button, turned out to be a faulty RAM stick as when I tried with just the 4GB stick it worked flawlessly. It was fine for 6 months. A few days ago, the same problem started happening and the computer has worked intermittently since. Leaving it around 30 mins or so without trying to power it on sometimes allows it to turn on and proceed operation normally. When it works, there are no performance issues or anything out of the ordinary. Battery charges perfectly and holds it very well. However currently I've been unable to get it running for 2 hours. I've disassembled it yet again and tried removing the battery and holding power for 60 seconds, to no avail. I tried removing and reseating the RAM numerous times, to no avail. When I start it up the fan spins, the DVD drive and hdd come on, no lights to the keyboard though although I'm not sure if this is due to the fault. Gonna leave it be and it may work again in the future but I'm just wondering what you guys think this is? I know it's an old laptop but it's annoying to bin it as when it does work it's flawless without fail. Also money is tight so can't really afford to replace it and I need it for school. One very important thing, when I plug and unplug the charger while attempting to start it, it beeps once for a short time each time I perform this action. Any ideas what this means? Surely if the RAM was faulty the computer would never work right? And when it is on it would not be flawless? Honestly stumped by this one, been fixing computers for years but just not sure really. Thanks for your help as always guys appreciate it

Specs:

Lenovo Ideapad Z500

Intel i5 3230M
6GB RAM (Now 4 after mishap)
1TB HDD
Disk drive
1366x768 15.6 screen.

 

[Samaratin]

How much dust and debris is inside it? When you say you took it apart, did you completely take it apart? or did you just pop off covers to RAM and HDD?

 

[dude7691]

Hi, very little as I have cleaned it, no problems until today as I said the laptop has worked flawlessly for 6 months or so after I removed the 2gb faulty ram stick (leaving 4) but today the same problem started again, leading me to believe the only remaining ram stick is faulty, so have ordered an identical compatible replacement. I took the covers off, keyboard off, DVD drive out and tried taking the ram in and out and nothing. No beeps unless I plug/unplug the charger (PC speaker is working). Guess I'll have to see what this replacement RAM stick brings. Hopefully it works again

 

[dude7691]

Okay it's come back to life again, not sure how well but everything appears to be running normally. I shook it several times with the cover removed and I think it dislodged a screw or something that was running along the back of the motherboard, preventing it shorting out on startup.