HP Pavilion won't start

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion DV9009cl running XP Media Center. It won't start at all. The blue LEDs on the cover light up for one second. That's it. Nothing on the screen. No fan. No noises. Nada.

I put a multimeter on the power adapter and got 19v DC. And the blue LED lis lit with it plugged in.

I've downloaded the repair manual and am not afraid to open it up. But I don't know what to look for. Actually, I did take it apart a little but put it back together before I got myself in trouble.

I read something about a POST card. I've never used one before and am not sure it'd be of any help in my case.

Please advise,

Thank you,

I read something about a POST card. I've never used one before and am not sure it'd be of any help in my case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POST_card
http://www.pc-diagnostics.com/pc_diagnosti...ombo_pack.shtml
Rather pricey for the non-repair person

When you take the battery out and use the power adapter does it show any signs of life?
A common problem with laptops is the DC jack coming loose from the system board

I get the same thing with just the battery, just the adapter, or both. I was thinking it might be the "Power adapter assembly" as the manual calls it. As that would cause me to have a dead battery and not get power from the adapter. I wanted to put my multimeter on the battery but didn't know which terminals to test.

The POST cards I was looking at are under $20 on ebay and have a USB cable. I doubt they would help at all though since the laptop will not "Power On". Like said, I know little about them. Maybe you get what you pay for, IDK.

Do you think the jack is just loose? The blue LED light around the jack is lit indicating that it is getting power. What's the best way to go about testing this?

Thank you,

Edited by #DPAC, 13 January 2010 - 09:37 PM.

What's the best way to go about testing this?

Unfortunately, there is no best way other than to disassemble the unit

Edited by garmanma, 14 January 2010 - 06:26 PM.

I took it apart this weekend. The adapter connector was not loose. It looked like a simple part that is not likely to be the culprit. I put it all back together, acts the same. I'm confident I can do the mechanical part of replacing parts. But I'm clueless as to how to determine what parts to replace.

At this point I'm mostly concerned about getting my data off the hard drives. I'm thinking about buying a used DV9009 but I don't even know that my HDs are good.

I'm considering taking it in,but not sure what to expect to pay.

Any advice or suggestions?