geob

Interesting idea, but my soldering skills are rusty, lead or not. Do I give my age when I say I built a Heathkit FM tuner? I think I'll go for the system board replacement. I've pulled boards before so this should be no problem. As long as it makes the problem go away I'll be a happy camper. Thanks again for the suggestions. George

Thanks for the suggestion. I've looked at the possibility the issue is related to BIOS and the RTC battery. I'd already re-flashed the BIOS with no change. BIOS also reported correct time and date so it's unlikely to be the battery. Besides, I'd have to get nearly as far as pulling the system board to replace the thing. If I do replace the board I'll replace the battery then. But the power up problems I don't think are related to the RTC battery. My best guess so far is that the system board has some failed components in its voltage detection circuitry. But I'd sure like it to be something I could fix without the expense of replacing the board. It seems like replacing the engine in my car because the air filter is clogged. George

I have an HP 6730s notebook that has decided not to power up most of the time. This behavior has been going on for about two weeks. More precisely, the system will not power up if: 1. AC adapter connected to laptop, no battery in place, amber light flashes - either slowly or quickly. or, 2. Fully-charged battery is installed, no AC connected, blue light goes on, amber may or may not flash. or, 3. Either power source is connected, switch set to on, power up begins, hard disk light is amber, shuts down within 30 seconds. From the power management guide: ● Turquoise: A battery is close to full charge capacity. ● Blinking amber: A battery that is the only available power source has reached a low battery level. When the battery reaches a critical Yet the AC adapter is new 90 Watt. Battery is new OEM 8-cell Li-ion. Battery passes HP Battery Check and is reported fully-charged. When these symptoms began the system also began displaying the message "Invalid serial number" during POST. The reference I think is to the system board serial number not the machine serial number. I've spent over 10 hours researching this error to no avail. My leaning is toward replacing the system board but I'd really like to get confirmation that this is the only way to resolve the issue. Any ideas? Many thanks. George