Problem with lap top computer turning on

Are you using the battery? Does it work with the power cord? Does anything happen at all?

Mary Kay we do need more information to be able to help you. This is a tough type of problem to solve over the internet as there could be a lot of different reasons and we can only guess. For example if nothing happens at all I would suspect a bad battery. If it starts to turn on but never makes it (stays on a black screen) I'd guess it's a software problem (and would recommend booting into safemode to see if that works).

So what happens? How do you know the battery charges?

It does turn on - withpower cord but nothing shows up on the screen

Computer blue light does come on after being charged with power cord. The screen does not come on

the Gateway lap top blue light comes on to reflect that it is powered up, however the next thing you do is touch the power button and the screen remains black

I recently had a similar problem with my fairly new laptop. It had been working fine, but suddenly didn't want to power on. When I turned it on, the screen remained black.

When I called HP they thought the problem might be due to static electricity. They had me unplug it and then remove and replace the battery. When I plugged it back in and turned it on it started up just fine.

You can try that and see if it works for you.

Like I said, it's all pretty much guesswork since we can't get our hands on the computer over the net. But here are my guesses:

In theory, the light you are talking about might not indicate that the laptop is powered up, and may just indicate that it is connected to a powered source (but not going past the battery) in practice I don't know how common that is, but it could still be a bad battery.

Broken screen. Screens are the next most common thing I see that breaks on a laptop. You can test this by connecting it to another monitor.

Software: if the screen actually powers up, but is black, it could be that the OS isn't loading, booting off a CD of an operating system is a way to test that.

But it could be a variety of other hardware failures that I can't rule out.

Thanks my son tried that but it didn't work. Thanks so much for your concern and advices. Mary kay;)

Thanks so much for your help. We will probably have to contact Gateway. The computers were bought for my twin son and daughter. My son's had a problem, he left it off for a long time and then just tried it out of the blue and it works. We were trying to get hers working before they leave to go back to college Sat. Thanks once again. Mary Kay:)

Thanks so much for your help. We will probably have to contact Gateway. The computers were bought for my twin son and daughter. My son's had a problem, he left it off for a long time and then just tried it out of the blue and it works. We were trying to get hers working before they leave to go back to college Sat. Thanks once again. Mary Kay:)

For what it's worth, our laptop does something that sounds similar, if the problem is really just that the screen isn't lighting up-- here's what works with ours (this is a totally non-technical suggestion, apologies to all the computer types that will be cringing at this ): There's a little button that gets pressed down when you shut the laptop; on ours it's a tiny little white plastic doo-hicky that sticks up at the back right of the keyboard. When our screen fails to come on for whatever reason, it usually works if you lightly tap or jiggle the little button--sometimes it just takes one tap, sometimes you have to give it a bunch of rapid jiggles. Yeah, I know, it's like hitting the tv when it's not coming in--but it works...

Recently my aging Sony Vaio developed a similar problem. First the keys - primarily the F keys - were sticking which made the rest of the keyboard inoperable. Then the screen would light up as described, but Windows wouldn't load. The computer gurus determined that the keyboard had shifted toward the back of the computer and was pressing against stuff. They moved it back into place and it worked fine. Try hooking your fingers at the back of the F keys and pull the keyboard gently toward you. If that is the problem, it should free everything up. Then I don't know what the repair shop has to do to keep that from happening again.

I solved the problem by buying a new computer.

Cyphercat, your problem sounds like the Screen Inverter is going bad. I had a similar experience with an HP laptop I used to have. Eventually "jiggling the doo-hicky" stopped working, and I couldn't get the screen to light up at all.

Once I found out it was the screen inverter, I found a replacement on ebay for about 10 bucks. Also, anyone comfortable with disassembling a laptop will probably find its a pretty easy part to get to, and only a couple of wires that connect it (at least on mine)