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This is a computer I was given that I had not worked with before. The owner said that it made weird noises and failed to boot intermittently before finally not starting anymore.

A first step would be to access the BIOS, in order to boot from USB, to examine the computer. But the default keys (see below) have not worked.

How is the BIOS accessed in a Sony SVE151C11M? After pressing the power button, the screen remains unpowered and the hd-led starts blinking.

The procedures given in these two SO-links and the comments, namely

  • ASSIST button to power on
  • ASSIST button, then power button to power on
  • ASSIST or POWER button to turn on, then F2 or F3
  • ASSIST to power on, then spamming F2, Fn-F2, F3, Fn-F3, or Del
  • removing the HD and retrying ASSIST [Fn]-F2, [Fn]-F3, Del

have so far not worked. An attached screen shows no input signal.

Could this be another problem, namely a screen or mainboard failure?

UPDATE: the hd works ok in an external enclosure, so as @Richie Frame said, it is probably a motherboard error. See also this post.

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serv-inc
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  • Try the F? buttons (or Del) but do not hold it, instead whoop on it (spam) keep switching it up and down, right after the machine is turned on. The reasons being holding it only will work if you held it at the right moment, holding it before it starts looking even it will not see it. And yes, it is likely that there could be other problems if your screen backlighting never shows – Psycogeek Apr 29 '15 at 07:46
  • @Psycogeek: thanks, if by spamming, you mean repeatedly quickly pressing, then it has not worked – serv-inc Apr 29 '15 at 07:46
  • If you know the HD is damaged, it can hold up the whole processes, even back at the bios when the drives get scanned. IF that was the first problem, then changing it , will change things. Nothing has changed on a corrupt or failing or mis-powered Hard drive holding up everything, eventually the requests may time out, and move on to hang again, and you could slowly get to the next stage, but if the HD is bad, it is going to be hard to get anywhere.. – Psycogeek Apr 29 '15 at 08:23
  • @Psycogeek: thanks, so, if the problem persists after the removal, is it probably mainboard, or how can it be diagnosed (better ask another question?) – serv-inc Apr 29 '15 at 09:43
  • In this question (already) you did not identify the original problem, how it got like that, or what kind of damages it has, so far it is not much more than a duplicate of the one linked. We can not see what your sitting in front of , or all the things you have seen or done. So there is not much that can be said. How wize it would be to start another question when you barely started this on :-) i do not know. – Psycogeek Apr 29 '15 at 09:55
  • given that it is a sony, it is probably motherboard failure due to inadequate cooling (prior owner of 2 sony laptops here) – Richie Frame Apr 29 '15 at 11:07
  • @RichieFrame: now if that were an answer, it would be worthy of an upvote – serv-inc Apr 29 '15 at 11:35

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As @Richie Frame pointed out (this is actually his answer, so he might wish to post one), the problem was probably a broken motherboard. The points by which to recognize it were

  • the screen was blank
  • the hd worked ok after removal
  • (none of the BIOS screen combinations worked)
  • an external screen showed no signal (otherwise, it could be graphics-related)
serv-inc
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