2014 Archives

[naraloca]

hello,

my computer froze so after a few minutes, I took the power cable off and the battery out. I tried to turn it on after putting the battery in and I can see the lights but the screen is black.

The lights on the keyboard are for 5 seconds, and then it shuts down again, restarting on its own.... constantly... on off every 5 seconds....

could you please tell me what can I do or what do I need to repair?? thank you

[Krisward]

I'm having the same problem with a second hand laptop I brought off ebay. (Are you the guy I brought it from?) hehe

Anyways, I've changed the ram. Tried flashing the bios with the newest version using the crisis recovery method (fn+esc)

If ordered a new CPU off ebay (only £10 so I can rule that out as a problem).. I'm pretty sure it's a bios issue. Anyone else have any other ideas before I de solder the chip?

Thanx

[n2gc]

5742's are known for heating issues. One thing one can try is keep tapping F8 when you first

power up and see if it will boot into safe mode. It might. But to be honest, it sounds more

like a hardware problem. On mine, I changed out the I5-460 to a I5-560, then went into

power and cut the 2 core powers down to 90%. I also serviced the fan and cooling radiator,

used Shin-Etsu for the thermal paste, with a thin copper shim on the GPU core. I also

installed 4 rubber boots called Laptop Lifts which raise the laptop higher when sitting to

increase air flow. Now it runs at 60/68 C all the time. I run a Western Digital Black 500

gig hard drive and just installed 8 gigs of G.Skill PC3-12800 memory, and this thing is

pretty darn fast now.

But I have to be honest with both of you, it sounds like the CPU and GPU's are giving you

probs. One might hook an external monitor to the vid port and see if you get it to boot

after tapping F8. The other prob may be a bad hard drive which can cause no screen and

constant reboot or no boot manager or no OS, but I really feel it's in the cores and cooling.

 The fan and it's speed leaves a lot to be desired, but with preparation, one can have a

fairly cool running unit. I'd take em apart and clean the fan. rad, and replace the thermal

paste with the best you afford and placing a thin copper shim between the GPU core and

heat sink may work. It did for me.

[Krisward]

Thanx for the reply. I've sorted part if the issue out now. It was a bios problem, I managed to flash the bios blind. Everything works apart from the HD is knackered. (Ill try another drive tomorrow to be sure but I'm 90% sure it's had it)

I usually use article silver for PC builds, will that be any good?

[n2gc]

That's great that you were able to get the BIOS to work hence the unit. Yes, Arctic Silver 5 is GREAT

thermal paste. I've used it many times as well as Shin-Etsu and Gelid Extreme. It's my go to for

back up. What BIOS are you running ? I have 1.30 and it seems to be running fine.

By the way, mine is a 5742 with no alpha following the numbers. I don't know what you have, but

these, at least mine, doesn't have a CAPS LOCK light, nor does the "beep' work. I located this

small resource program that places either an X when CAPS are off, or a green checkmark when

CAPS is on. You can also set a beep sound to let you know when CAPS is on. Works great and

is virus free >

http://www.georgejopling.co.uk/capslock/capslock.html

[Krisward]

Exact same model as yours mate. 5742 with no alpha. Bios I'm running is only 1.1 but that's all which would flash blind. Ill update the bios when I know there's no other fault. I need one that allows more advanced settings than stock. One that I can Change the onboard VRAM, it's set to 128mb and greyed out. I've upgraded the ram too 6Gb so I have some leeway for the graphics.