Laptop Sudden Death

[joenp1]

My seven year old laptop died on me and I’m dying to know how.
It was an HP DV6, Core 2 Duo, Vista, ATI graphics, circa 2009
Its history:
1.    Battery replaced with new one
2.    LCD inverter over 2 years slowly died (been using external monitor/KB since)
3.    Fan sometimes very noisy, solution was to disable “fan always on” from BIOS and run slower CPU speed from Windows’ power management, perfect heat management
Then suddenly last week while listening to music on it, and away from it, the computer froze and the speakers produced that frozen looping sound (can’t describe it any better)
Such thing used to happen to me ages ago on a P4 laptop when playing a certain level of Call of Duty (1).
I rushed to it, the monitor was blank (could have been the display auto sleep)
So what I did, which I’ve done before to many laptops, is hold down the power button until I force a shut down.
Now, when I pressed the button to start it, it wouldn’t even post (not even the HP logo)
It would restart itself every 1-2 seconds
I panicked. And cut the power again.
I tried to reseat the 2 RAM modules in all configs, same issue
No beeps even
After many tries it finally stopped rebooting itself, but still nothing shows up on the external monitor
Only blinking numpad and caps-lock indicators
3 blinks, and repeat, HP support site said that mean issue with memory module
Tried to reseat the RAM again, even used 1 module from another HP laptop, nothing
Then tried START+B then power-on, again from HP site, that should get the BIOS back in shape
The motherboard beeped, about 3 beeps. And that’s it. Nothing.
Then the laptop went back to its auto-reboot thing every 1 second
I let it be for about 15 minutes. HP site indicated that’s the BIOS trying to save itself.
Also tried pressing all four arrows + power-on. Also nothing.
Luckily hard drive and the data on it are in good shape and were accessed just fine using a HDD USB enclosure.
The laptop doesn’t deserve a costly visit to a repair center. But what would cause such sudden death?
Remember auto diagnostic blinking suggested memory issue, memory was reseated, and different module used too.
Beeping means motherboard should be okay to my limited knowledge.
I’m clueless.
Anyway it served me well. I’ve now moved to an i5 Skylake laptop. About time.

[joenp1]

51 minutes ago, BurnerMC said:

Edit: welcome to the forums too

Thanks!

 

One thing came to mind now. Could it be one of those dreaded sector zero virus thing? Affecting only boot stuff and perhaps BIOS leaving my data intact?

[jackm1120]

Im assuming that core 2 duo was running at load most of the time since they all do, even my old e8400 desktop core 2 duo cant even handle netflix with a gtx 260.  Thus, your cpu was probably pretty hot, plus the AMD videocard....Those run HOT.  My HP DV5t from 2008 is setup for media PC, i keep it upside down because it keeps temps about 10C cooler.  It has a 2Ghz core 2 duo and an nvidia card and still hits the high 80s under load.  

 

My guess would be the heat killed it.  Check online, maybe u can find a logic board for like 20$ and fix it yourself.

[jackm1120]

25 minutes ago, joenp1 said:

Thanks!

 

One thing came to mind now. Could it be one of those dreaded sector zero virus thing? Affecting only boot stuff and perhaps BIOS leaving my data intact?

Doubt it, on that model laptop u have to put the bios on a flash drive or cd and flash the bios, u cant do it through the OS.  On modern motherboards with ufie where u can flash your bios in windows without shutting down can give those types of infected bios's

[joenp1]

35 minutes ago, jackm1120 said:

My guess would be the heat killed it

with reduced CPU frequency, temps were in the range of 37-50C, the fan kicks in around 50-55C.

 

during gaming, which I rarely do, I'd choose the full performance power setup, temps also were good.

 

I can't think of a correlation between that freeze with the stuck sound error and the won't boot attitude

[jackm1120]

Its possible for components to become disconnected, even in laptops.  Its highly unlikely but if a drive or memory module was disconnected, it could have caused a surge that fried the motherboard.  Also, a small piece of metal or conductive material may have found its way into your laptop and shorted something out. There could have been a power surge or the power brick crapped out and caused a surge, a capacitor may have exploded (although you would have heard and smelled it)  Also 7 years is a good run, they dont make computers to last forever anymore.