Trying to diagnose my samsung np900x3c A03US laptop -- is it dead?

pbrunts

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Jul 5, 2011
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Hi all,

I've been searching for a while and I haven't been able to figure out what the problem is and whether it's fixable. I have a Samsung Series 9 laptop that I bought in August 2012. It's a great laptop, probably the best computer I've owned, and still relatively quick despite it's age. The only problem is that it won't boot -- or anything really. It appears I'm having some type of hardware failure and I would really like some help.

So here are my questions: if my mother board were dead, would my battery still show a charging light? There are two color LEDs, one orange and one green. The orange shows charging, the green shows charged. Would that not require the motherboard to be operating to show?

Second, the main board gets warm. The CPU and ram are welded into the main motherboard (there are two secondary boards that control the ports and jacks) and there is a heat sync that runs through the middle of the board to two fans. The heat syncs get hot although the fans don't run (but it's an ultrabook and designed to not have running fans unless necessary).

Finally, the computer does power on. The power button turns blue when pressed, which is how it worked before. The screen does not turn on at all (remains black with no lighting at all). There's no post, there's no boot, from what I can tell there is no actual activity. And when I press the power button again, it turns off immediately, as if it doesn't require any extra time to boot down. I have opened up the computer and disconnected the battery, checked the connections, etc. It remains the same. Does this sound like anything in particular? Could it be a bad board? Ram (which would be the same effect as a same board since it's welded on)? Bad CPU? Any thoughts would be helpful at this time.
 

pbrunts

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Jul 5, 2011
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18,510


I did try an external monitor through my hdmi cord. It showed up as no input.

I have briefly looked at motherboard replacements. That feels like an extreme next step, so I was hoping for a solution.

Honestly, it appears to me that this is a hardware issue, possibly RAM, but the way the computer went out seemed like it should be a simple 'reset the computer' or software issue. I was hoping someone had a simple solution that I just didn't think of.