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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: Marianthompson47 on Monday 09 December 24 19:42 GMT (UK)
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I have an old laptop which I believe we purchased in 2011.
Unfortunately, it will not switch on.
Is there anything I can do to wake it up?
Thank you!
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This may seem like a stupid question, but have you charged up the battery? Are there any signs of life when you plug in the charging cable? Any lights coming on?
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If the battery is fully charged and it still won’t switch on, try removing the battery and then put it back in and try again. If it still doesn’t start, try removing the battery again and try starting it while just connected to the mains. If that doesn’t work then I’m sorry I don’t know what else to suggest.
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This may seem like a stupid question, but have you charged up the battery? Are there any signs of life when you plug in the charging cable? Any lights coming on?
Yes the battery is charged as far as know. The screen remains black.
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If the battery is fully charged and it still won’t switch on, try removing the battery and then put it back in and try again. If it still doesn’t start, try removing the battery again and try starting it while just connected to the mains. If that doesn’t work then I’m sorry I don’t know what else to suggest.
I will try to remove the battery and re-install it, and try again. Thank you
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Look up for your make and model of Laptop how to initiate Safe Mode.
Usually you have to press a specific Function key during the boot process.
Report back on what happens
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Just a thought~
How old is the battery? If it's quite old, then it might need replacing.
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I had similar on a 2013 laptop. Was the computer updating? You could try re-booting the system. Plug the computer in to the mains and with both lights showing press the power button. Both lights should go off. Keep the button pressed for 30 seconds and then press to start again.
If the battery is failing you should be able to see the power being held, or if failed the battery light will be orange.
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Look up for your make and model of Laptop how to initiate Safe Mode.
Usually you have to press a specific Function key during the boot process.
Report back on what happens
Thank you. I will do.
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I had similar on a 2013 laptop. Was the computer updating? You could try re-booting the system. Plug the computer in to the mains and with both lights showing press the power button. Both lights should go off. Keep the button pressed for 30 seconds and then press to start again.
If the battery is failing you should be able to see the power being held, or if failed the battery light will be orange.
I will try this as well, thank you.
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If the lights come on and it sounds like it is powering up but the screen remains black then it might be a screen failure. Plugging in an external monitor might help.
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If the lights come on and it sounds like it is powering up but the screen remains black then it might be a screen failure. Plugging in an external monitor might help.
Nothing at all happens. No lights, no sound, nothing.
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No lights at all could be a power supply issue coupled with a flat battery.
An electrical test meter connected to the terminals that plug into thee Laptop will show if power is available.
At 13 years old even spending £15-£25 on a new power supply would still not guarantee that the Laptop would work.
It is probably time to buy a new Laptop.
Do destroy the hard drive and recycle the remainder of the Laptop when it come to disposal time.
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No lights at all could be a power supply issue coupled with a flat battery.
An electrical test meter connected to the terminals that plug into thee Laptop will show if power is available.
At 13 years old even spending £15-£25 on a new power supply would still not guarantee that the Laptop would work.
It is probably time to buy a new Laptop.
Do destroy the hard drive and recycle the remainder of the Laptop when it come to disposal time.
Thank you very much. Could you please advise how to destroy the hard drive, should I not be able to revive the laptop?
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No lights at all could be a power supply issue coupled with a flat battery.
An electrical test meter connected to the terminals that plug into thee Laptop will show if power is available.
At 13 years old even spending £15-£25 on a new power supply would still not guarantee that the Laptop would work.
It is probably time to buy a new Laptop.
Do destroy the hard drive and recycle the remainder of the Laptop when it come to disposal time.
Miraculously, the laptop switched on.
However there are several issues.
1. The battery doesn't seem to be charging, there is a red cross across the icon.
2. It is telling me that the Microsoft package is not genuine.
3. It tells me Windows has crashed.
4. My most reliable mouse has stopped working.
😔😔.
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Did you have the laptop stuck in a cupboard unused for a long while? If so the battery will have gone into "deep discharge" which knackers them. So you might get it to work just about but the battery life would be a matter of minutes and it can just go off with no warning.
If the main battery goes flat then that can also lead to the small back up battery also suffering from deep discharge and it becomes useless to hold basic info like time and settings.
I have an old camera which I neglected to charge up every few months so, although I can use it with fresh main batteries inserted, the back up battery is "gone" so I have to reset the time and date etc whenever I take out a main battery to change it for a freshly charged one.
Reminds me it's time I recharged all the other things I still hang onto but rarely use, old tablet and a few cameras.
Destroying the hard drive - I tried that on a one from an old tower PC. Six inch nail would not go thought it. Could not drill through it. Ended up just hammering the connectors to make them unusable. Theoretically someone could have maybe still got at the data on it out but there was nothing on there which would have been worth the bother.
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I have a laptop that I can only use when plugged into the mains. It was upgraded to Windows 11. Since then it powers on but nothing on screen even if I try to reset the video with the key combination: Windows + Shift + Ctrl + B at the same time. Can now only use when plugged into mains.
Have you tried the key combination above? Have you recently upgraded to a new version of Windows?
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I have a laptop quite senior to yours, the sticker on the back says it was pre-installed with Windows Millennium Edition! The main battery failed when it was still quite young, as did a warranty replacement, and it sat in a cupboard for a few years when I got a desktop.
I unearthed it perhaps five or ten years ago and installed XP. I find it useful for digitising my vinyl, it has a line-in port and I can sit it alongside my record deck. I plug it in to the mains. It never goes online.
The little backup battery referred to by Spelk discharges if I leave it unplugged and the laptop gives error messages when it boots and won't recognise things connected to the USB ports, but setting the date and time to something fairly current, then rebooting, solves this. I suspect your message about non-genuine software is because it can't reconcile the install date with what it thinks is today's date.
If you don't need to rely on the battery I'm sure your 2011 example has years of service left in it!
Jane :-)
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Did you have the laptop stuck in a cupboard unused for a long while? If so the battery will have gone into "deep discharge" which knackers them. So you might get it to work just about but the battery life would be a matter of minutes and it can just go off with no warning.
If the main battery goes flat then that can also lead to the small back up battery also suffering from deep discharge and it becomes useless to hold basic info like time and settings.
I have an old camera which I neglected to charge up every few months so, although I can use it with fresh main batteries inserted, the back up battery is "gone" so I have to reset the time and date etc whenever I take out a main battery to change it for a freshly charged one.
Reminds me it's time I recharged all the other things I still hang onto but rarely use, old tablet and a few cameras.
Destroying the hard drive - I tried that on a one from an old tower PC. Six inch nail would not go thought it. Could not drill through it. Ended up just hammering the connectors to make them unusable. Theoretically someone could have maybe still got at the data on it out but there was nothing on there which would have been worth the bother.
Yes indeed, the laptop has lain unused for years. When we retrieved it from its forced slumber, it would no longer switch on. So we stored it away again "just in case" it remembered us at a later date and we bought a new one. That was two years ago.
Today, I thought I would try to switch it on and Eureka!! It did but produced several messages, the most worrying of which was a red cross across the battery icon.
Then it said my version of Microsoft was a pirate!? and my mouse did not work...
The wire seems OK but since it was purchased around 13 years ago, it could well have given up the ghost.
I scoured the internet, mostly the HP website which offered solutions but quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered...
Thank you for your information🤗
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No lights at all could be a power supply issue coupled with a flat battery.
An electrical test meter connected to the terminals that plug into thee Laptop will show if power is available.
At 13 years old even spending £15-£25 on a new power supply would still not guarantee that the Laptop would work.
It is probably time to buy a new Laptop.
Do destroy the hard drive and recycle the remainder of the Laptop when it come to disposal time.
Miraculously, the laptop switched on.
However there are several issues.
1. The battery doesn't seem to be charging, there is a red cross across the icon.
2. It is telling me that the Microsoft package is not genuine.
3. It tells me Windows has crashed.
4. My most reliable mouse has stopped working.
😔😔.
I still have a Windows 3.1 laptop in the loft which I haven't used for a long time but kept because I still had an old software package used occasionally - and then because I keep forgetting to take it to the recycling. The main battery has long given up the ghost but it did still work on mains power last time I tried so that wasn't a concern.
As others have suggested, resetting the date and time might fix the Windows problems. Most CMOS batteries are replaceable button batteries and doing that would retain the date settings.
Best way of destroying a hard drive is to hit it several times with a sledgehammer - but wear PPE, especially eye protection.
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I believe that now, if will not even switch on as the red cross showed it was at Zero.
We do use another laptop but unfortunately it doesn't have WORD, so it is impossible for me to type anything, an awful oversight which we were not informed of when we purchased it.
Thanks for your insight.
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You could try LibreOffice Writer which is free and can read and save in Office docx format:
https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/writer/ (https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/writer/)
Failing that there is an online free but limited version of Microsoft that you can use:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web)
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You could try LibreOffice Writer which is free and can read and save in Office docx format:
https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/writer/ (https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/writer/)
Failing that there is an online free but limited version of Microsoft that you can use:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web)
Thank you!
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Not forgetting that Windows still has Notepad in it. It may be a pretty basic text editor but it is still there and can be very handy. Win 10 still has Wordpad as well, although I think it may have been withdrawn from Windows11.