HP NC6320 Compaq Laptop Wont Turn on Intermittently

[texastone]

Hello this is a tough one!!! lol.

Have this NC6320 Business laptop that has the time and date error.

I replaced the cmos battery and did a clean reinstall of windows XP. Sometimes it would boot to windows XP but sometimes it goes to a blue screen of death. Saying windows has encountered an error and has been shut down to protect your computer. Now at one time during the clean reinstall it lost contact with the hard drive and it said there was NO hard drive. I took out the drive and cleaned the connections and put it back. Still occasionally like every couple of starts I would get the blue screen. Now most of the time I can't even get this thing to boot up.

With the battery in and the power connected, it lights up a little yellow light or green light next to a pic of a little lightning bolt depending on if the battery is fully charged or not. No matter what I do with the power button it won't start up, shut down, reboot Etc. WHen its running you cant hold the power button down and shut down. Does NOTHING. But if I pull the battery and power chord and put the chord back in sometimes it just automatically fires up, or Many cases I find that if I disconnect the Cmos battery for a while, plug it back in and then plug the chord in, it automatically fires up everytime pretty much. Keep in mind I don't press the power button, it just fires up on its own.

I put windows 7 on it after replacing the cmos battery in hopes that will take care of my "system date and time not set" error. I have tried the hard reset by disconnecting and pulling everything, and holding the power button down for 30 seconds but that never gets it to boot up. I always have to pull the cmos battery then it goes on its own. While installing windows 7 during the loading files part it lost communication with the hard drive again. Took it out and put it back in and got it to load. When it boots up its lightning fast and as long as I hit restart within windows it reboots everytime with windows 7 and no blue screens as long as the power button is not needed otherwise I have to pull the cmos battery and replace it to get it to fire back up on its own.

So I lean away from the hard drive being the problem that causes it not to power up. Wouldn't it at least get to the bios?? popped the switch cover off. It is making contact with the button on the motherboard just fine. Tried pressing the button directly on the board with the power board cable connector still plugged in and absolutely nothing.

So is it the motherboard?? Been pulling my hair out over this!!! Thanks for your help!!

[Computer Customs]

Yeah your problem is too random to be a hard drive. Last time i had a similar issue, i replaced the mobo. As its a laptop, you probably wont be able to get one depending on the age of it so you might have to cut your losses.

[fsxss]

Reinstalling XP or installing a different operating system will do nothing to correct the time error.

Did you try resetting the BIOS to its default settings after replacing the CMOS battery (caution: this will delete your current configuration)?

If that doesn't work, I would suggest reflashing the BIOS, but you should note that it's a dangerous procedure that could do more harm then good if it happens to fail.

[texastone]

Thanks for your replies. I pulled all the momory, hard drive, and wifi card, battery and power chord, held down the power button for 30 seconds, tried to start only using the power chord and I got NOTHING. I have reset bios to defaults, replaced the bios battery and reflashed the bios. All to no avail. I think though the new bios battery did the trick for the date and time error. I think your right that it needs a new mother board. They are available on ebay for around 50 bucks. Ill have to decide what the heck to do. lol

[texastone]

Ok I pulled the hard drive, all the memory, battery, chord, wifi card and pressed the power button for 30 seconds. Plugged in the power chord, and hit the button. I had NOTHING!! Ok your not going to believe this. I put it all back together and still had nothing. I just started rapid fire tapping the power button. It powered up!!! I held it down once it started and it did nothing. I started tapping it again and it went to sleep I pressed it again, and it woke up. I shut it down, pressed the power button and it booted!!!! SHut it down again. Pressed the power button. It booted!!!!! i have no clue what to think about that!!!