I've got my sisters laptop on my... well, lap, and if it's not dead, it's definitely on life support.
Switching it on starts up the fan, but the screen is dead. Unresponsive to key presses or mouse clicks, and plugging in an external screen doesn't help either. All I can do is force it to turn if with a 5 second count on the power button.

 

Amy ideas?

does it do anything at all?
ie; will it go into bios?
can you boot an OS from an external device?

Screen is completely dead, no BIOS, no beeps.
Haven't tried a different OS as I figured I'd need to access the BIOS first to change boot order.

That's who we need!

Does it have a CMOS battery? If it does, remove it for a few minutes and see if that does anything.

You might also want to try removing the main battery, HDD and the RAM if possible and see if it will start-up without them.

Without the RAM the most it probably do is beep (or some other diagnostics, like flashing LEDs), but at least that'll be more than it's doing at the moment.

Without the HDD, if it POST, it should at least allow you to boot from a USB memory stick.

What Matt said. Try without as much hardware as possible. And swap the RAM if you have spares.

Never taken a laptop to pieces before, not any more than installing extra RAM anyway.
On my way back home now, but next time I'm there I'll have a look at taking it apart.

Is it an Apple laptop? If not, the answer to the question in the thread title is 'NO...duh!'

"Screen is completely dead, no BIOS, no beeps".

By "no BIOS" I assume you mean you can't get to the CMOS setup menu.  If that's the case, then "no BIOS, no beeps" usually means the CPU is toast.

Assuming you've tried Matt's suggestions, if it's still a no-go, see this post of mine on the PCmag board, for why the 4-second soft-off still works.  (Not to be pedantic, but it's always 4, not 5 seconds).

Dude, you need to reduce your font size. I have to sit another foot away from my screen to be able to read your posts comfortably.

 

I refuse to have my eyes exchanged for a different model when it's easier for you to make the setting changes. :C

I didn't realise they were so big. I read them all on my phone and they're all resized to be the same!

What browser are you using on the ol' phone there?

 

Admittedly I've not tried using anything other than Firefox to view the posts, so could be different in alternatives.

"Dude, you need to reduce your font size".

 

For my aging eyes it looks just fine.  However, most browsers have some type of font "normalizer" (probably more accurate to call it a "compressor") that forces larger fonts down, and smaller fonts up, to a preset size.  It's usually hidden somewhere with a title like "accessibility settings".

 

Barring that, you may notice near the bottom of the page a section labeled "Adjust text size".  I highly suggest you consider its use.

 

Suffice it to say, I have no intentions of altering my formatting, preset by Frontpage (in which my posts are composed) to 12 point, considered a "medium" font.

"...they're all resized to be the same!"

 

As I point out above, most browsers have some facility for doing just that.  On most phones it's enabled by default.

When someone sets their font size specifically, it breaks the user's ability to choose a font size comfortable for them (except for on some phones, which display all text at the same size).

As you've said yourself, Beehive allows us all to choose our preferred size for post fonts. Your approach means that everyone's post text is the same size, apart from yours, which is huge. Given that you're aware of the font size setting I highly suggest you consider using it rather than inflicting your enormo-font on everyone.

Your current approach is somewhat anti-social, especially given that you've implicitly acknowledged that it's both redundant and nonsensical.

but your formatting overrides that!
I have mine set to 10, used to be 8 but I got old, your fonts are bigger than anyone else's

aside from that, your posts are very helpful, kinda reminds me of how this place was 10 years ago (in a good way)

(giggle)

You should patent that. :C

What Lucy said. If we want yours and everyone elses fonts larger we will adjust them accordingly down at the bottom. I want everyone as the default (10).

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

I would've thought someone with as much tech knowledge would've had a better way of doing things!