Hi,
In late January of 2012, I purchased an HP Pavilion DV6-6117DX notebook. Since that time I never really had any major issues with the laptop. I was extremely happy with my purchase and felt the notebook was worth the money I spent.
Unfortunately, a week ago tonight, it began having issues. This past Sunday night (1/12), I went to check my email before bed. When I lifted the lid on my laptop, I noticed it was in Sleep Mode. I rarely put it into Sleep Mode, so this was odd. Not thinking too much into it, I simply awoke it and went about checking my email. After a few minutes, the laptop suddenly began entering Sleep Mode once again, on its own. This was very strange to me. Once again, I awoke it and finished checking my email (about 5 minutes). This time it did not enter Sleep Mode again and I eventually clicked Shut Down to turn it off for the night. As I always do, I closed the lid and went to bed.
The next morning (Monday, 1/13), when I opened the lid, the screen turned on as if it had been in Sleep Mode. This was strange because I know I clicked the Shut Down button and closed the lid, like I always do. I began to click my user name to log in when the laptop totally shut itself off. Very strange. I waited a second and pushed the power button. It began to boot up normally. When it got to the login screen, I received a message stating the Login Interactive Process had failed. I clicked okay and the computer proceeded to reboot. This time, I got a message asking if I wanted to run Startup Repair, but I opted not to do so. As it began to boot up again, the laptop suddenly powered off during the Windows loading screen. I clicked the power button again and within less than a second, it shut itself down. Before I could click the power button, it began starting up, but again, it very quickly shut down.
I thought maybe it was the battery, so I removed it and powered on the laptop again, but the same thing happened.... it began to load and after a few seconds just lost power. I ended up letting it sit for a few hours before trying it again. This time, it actually got to the normal Windows desktop, but just as it was loading, it powered down and went through the same on-off-on-off routine again. This time I allowed the laptop to rest an entire day before trying to boot it back up. Surprisingly, everything loaded up just fine. I was able to access the internet and read my email. After being on for about 10 minutes, the laptop simply lost power again. At this point I had pretty much given up all hope just assuming it was dead.
After sitting for a few days, I wanted to try one last thing I thought of and that was to swap out the memory, thinking it might have gone bad. I took a good stick of memory (the same exact type) from a working laptop and put it in. To my surprise, the system loaded up without a problem. Thinking it might just be like before (work for 10 minutes and then die), I let it sit for a little while. When it stayed on, I opened a few programs to see how that would affect it. Everything seemed fine. Just to be sure, I decided to run the disk defragmenter just to see how the system would hold up to a little more stress. The program ran perfectly and I left the laptop on for the rest of the day and used it like normal. I shut it down that night not knowing if it would work the next day, but feeling pretty good that I may have figured out what was wrong and fixed it.
The next morning I booted it up and everything seemed fine. After being on for several hours and using it just as I normally would, I needed to run to the store for a few hours. As I always do when leaving for a little while, I put the laptop into Sleep Mode. When I got home and went to check the laptop, I lifted the screen and the system did not come back on. I thought it was possible I accidentally hit Shut Down and not Sleep. I pushed the power button and the laptop started to load as if it had been put into Hibernate. As I scrolled over to click my login...... the laptop shut itself down. I tried to power it back up, but it did the on-off-on-off thing again. I left it for the rest of the day and checked it the next morning. It began to load up, but after being on for about 5-10 minutes, it shut down. And that's where I am now.
Does anyone have any clues what might be causing this? I'm not the most tech savvy person, at least not when it comes to these kind of hardware issues, but I'm guessing it's possibly motherboard related. The problem for me is, I haven't even owned the laptop for two years and now it's gone belly up. I owned a Toshiba laptop for 10+ years and it still powers up and works (it's just incredibly outdated and slow). Every other laptop computer I've ever owned has always just gotten old and outdated and needed to be upgraded.... never stopped working like this.
I tried contacting HP but haven't gotten much help. I can't call them during business hours because of my schedule and they don't seem to be able to communicate with me over email. My warranty is up, so I guess I'm pretty much screwed at this point. I really would have thought HP would stand behind their products and be more willing to assist when a $500 laptop dies in less than 2 years. For me, that $500 was a big investment and I can't afford to just buy a new laptop or pay for a massive repair. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you!