Help with laptop

[Kalisperas]

My aunt's laptop recently quit working, and instead of having it repaired, she decided to order a brand new one and give me the old one. However, it seems like it might be repairable, and it's only about a little over a year old (HP Pavillion ze1230), so I need some advice as to what might be the problem. I'm mostly going off of what she has told me, as I just got it, and haven't had much time to play with it yet, but it seems to be unable to boot up. It will post OK, if the power stays on long enough. It powers itself off randomly during the startup process. Sometimes it stays on longer, but seems to freeze. My aunt had started re-installing with the recovery CD's, so there's no OS on it now, but it powered off during the second CD install, so now it has to boot off the CD. But when I get it to boot up (without losing power), it gets to the recovery CD screen, and nothing happens - it just sits there. No cursor, no keyboard response. If I unplug the power cord it powers off, so I don't know if the battery is just drained, or if it's shot.

So, any suggestions as to what I can try? Also, if it comes to it, is it possible/practical to replace the motherboard/processer in a laptop like you can in a desktop? Are there third party laptop boards, or do I have to get an overpriced one through HP?

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[michaelh20]

If it were running on the battery, it could be a bad battery.

Also if it's just 1 year old, is it possible it's under warranty?

I know some warranty's are only 1 year.

 

[corkyg]

Replace the battery. This is a common fault on many laptops often caused by users not regularly calibrating their batteries.

 

[Kalisperas]

I'm actually running it off AC right now. I think the battery is dead anyway, since the machine powers off immediately if I unplug it. While it's plugged in, the power light does one of two things: it either cycles on and off, during which time I can start it booting, but it will shut off after a couple seconds when the power light cycles back to "off" - or sometimes the power light will be steady, but when this happens I cannot turn it on at all, the power button does nothing.

And I checked the warranty status with HP's online warranty checker, and it's expired.

 

[Kalisperas]

Some progress: I tried running it with the battery out, and while doing this it allows me to boot up, and begins the setup process, but shuts down sometime during the setup. So it seems the battery is certainly shot, and possibly the AC adapter.

Question: Is it possible the random shutdowns during install could be an overheating problem? I know my desktop comp has an auto-shutdown feature if the processer overheats, could this be happening here? It just seems if it was a problem with the power adapter, the shut down should be more random, as in it should run for longer sometimes. But it always happens during the first 2-5 minutes after starting up.