CLEVO P170EM Refuses to Switch On

[mdhay]

Hello everyone! As you can read from the title I'm having a bit of a problem.

I bought a Vortex 3 PC in 2012 from here, and whilst it has been a great experience, save for the drivers for the keyboard acting all weird and making the apostrophe key refuse to work unless held down, everything has come to a slump today.

My personal circumstances stop me from having a desk of my own, so it's sat on my lap whilst I'm using it. I placed it on a surface whilst I went into another room and the battery (being the one it came with it now holds little charge) ran flat. My brother noticed and plugged it back in too late, and ever since then it has refused to switch on. The two power lights at the front of it are telling me that it is getting a charge, it just doesn't want to co-operate.

Since i have taken as good amount of care with it as I can I'm not considering that it is because of malware or dust, since both hard disk and constituent parts are clean, although I won't rule them out outright. I am also considering that this could be a battery issue, but I tried booting without the battery in it and that has done bugger-all.

Has anyone with this model or otherwise has this kind of problem? Since I have just finished my second year of university it isn't a big problem if there is nothing that can be done, but it is still a massive inconvenience if so. I would also want to avoid doing anything with the warranty, just in case.

I'll post my specs at the end of this, for what they will be worth.

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3740QM (2.70GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
32GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC1500 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch (£25)
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

 

[mantadog]

Do any fans spin up, any other signs of life happen when you push the power button?

We had a laptop die a similar death recently, after ages of testing and troubleshooting the only thing it could have been in my case was the motherboard. If it is point blank refusing to boot even when plugged into power then I'd be looking at the motherboard, if it was anything else it would be beeping or throwing some kind of error code I would imagine. The charger looks to be working fine, so unless the power button is broken that doesn't leave much room other than the motherboard.

it might just be a coincidence that the battery died and now it wont power on. With a laptop of that spec I'd definitely say its worth getting repaired, Give PCS a call and arrange an RMA.

 

[mdhay]

Yeah, there's no activity from it whatsoever.

It would seem to be the motherboard, which is strange given that it happened all of a sudden. I guess it is something that will happen eventually. I'll get on the phone with PCS and see how much an RMA will be- a family member disposed of the box it came in when I moved elsewhere. Thanks for the help!

 

[mantadog]

Motherboards don't tend to go slowly unfortunately, they work or they don't.

I know PCS can send you more packaging, but the cost is fairly substantial if I remember rightly. let us know how it goes.

 

[mdhay]

Apologies for the bad reponse time- I had lots to try to do withoug a decent computer.

This isn't something I can do until the middle of September because of Student Finance, who would need proof of how much the repair would cost before they brought payments forward. Is there any way of coming up with an estimate, that you know of?

 

[mantadog]

If it is the motherboard, and unless it was tested you would never be able to say for sure, the best thing to do would be call PCS and ask for a quote in writing to replace the motherboard. I presume that would be enough to prove the cost.

 

[paul1224]

The issue could be the motherboard but as it coincided with the battery running flat I'm not so sure.

I would initially consider doing the following:
1 Remove the battery and make sure the power supply isn't plugged in.
2 Press and hold down the power button for at least 30 seconds.
3 Put the battery back in and plug in the power supply/charger and press the power button and see if it starts.
4 If it doesn't power up then repeat 1 and 2 and then leave the battery out, plug in the charger and try to boot without the battery.

Although the above is a very basic troubleshooting tip it can sort issues like the one you have described as it may be that your laptop has just completely run out of juice and by doing the above it resets things. Might be a long shot but I would definitely recommend giving it a try before you go onto much more bigger and more expensive options.

If the above doesn't work either with the battery in or out then my next step would be to check the RAM (as it is so easy to do) before thinking about the motherboard (as this for me would be the last option as it is the most expensive and difficult).

To check the RAM just open up the laptop back where the RAM is situated (ground yourself first to avoid static) and take out both RAM sticks, clip them both back in and then try to boot the laptop.

If that doesn't work take both out and then plug each one in one at a time and see if it will boot with one RAM stick in (try each RAM stick in each slot). I have had laptops show no sign of life at all simply down to a RAM stick failing or a RAM slot failing so worth a shot checking this out after the above regarding the power button has been tried.

 

[mdhay]

And that's what I get for forgetting about this thread!

Yeah, I got in touch with PCS and they told me to do the same thing- sadly this did nothing and an RMA would be too expensive, even once I'm able to pay. What I've looked into tells me that a weird clicking sound and random BSoD'ing along with the aforementioned drivers disappearing is proof of a dying hard drive. Considering this, would a bad disk stop it from booting altogether? It's the first time a drive has failed on me, so I'm utterly clueless and Google is strangely of no help.

 

[paul1224]

Do any of the laptop lights blink with a certain pattern, i.e. 2 long blinks 2 short blinks, 1 long blink, etc?

The above normally indicates if there are issues and points you to the culprit, the lights sometimes blink on the power led, charging led, or the lights that light up on the caps lock key.

I have had instances when the above hasn't given any blink codes but normally this is only when the MOBO is completely gone, therefore if the thoughts are that it could be the hard drive I would expect to see blink codes indicating this and then you could post back what the codes are here and hopefully someone can point you in the right direction of the diagnosis area where the issue is.

Hope that helps.

 

[mantadog]

If it were the HDD you could still get into the BIOS and you would get something from the machine in terms of fans spinning etc.

My money still goes on the motherboard frying itself.

 

[paul1224]

Only other small check I can think of doing if there are no error blinks is replace the CMOS battery as a precaution as they are normally very cheap.

I have known laptops to show no power signs at all and it was down to the CMOS battery going, long shot but might be a small price to pay just to check it out (maybe take the old one out, leave it for a while, and then put it back in as well just in case this does anything before looking at a replacement).

 

[mdhay]

Turns out it was a problem with the power input- that's what happens when I don't have a desk, I suppose. I got it back on Friday but there seems to be another problem- I'll make a separate thread for that, though.