[SOLVED] Computer hangs at boot for any operating system

Question

I had no idea where to post this. No matter what I try to load, be it Linux, Windows, or even a livecd, it hangs. For Arch it hangs after "loading initrd", for Linux Mint it hangs randomly in the init sequence, usually about halfway through. Windows gets stuck at the splash, and livecds get caught up after the initrd line. I tried manually booting them with grub (using grub2) with the same results. I hadn't been messing with anything boot related prior, and the fact that it's anything i try to boot, including livecds, sort of says to me it isn't boot loader related anyway. But I honestly have no idea. Is it the hardware? It's an HP Pavillion dv6 laptop if that helps at all.
Last edited by les_paul1369 (2011-10-19 12:09:03)

Answer 1

Have you had any overheating issues? Those HP dv6 laptops are  notorious for that problem. Idle temperatures in the 80 to 90 degrees Celsius range are not uncommon. That type of heating can damage components on the motherboard over time. You can try blowing out your vents and running with the screen edge elevated by a small book or magazine so as to increase air circulation underneath the laptop. You may want to run memtest overnight which should give you several passes. That should pick up any problems with your ram. If any are revealed, it's usually only one ram stick that's gone bad so you can isolate it by removing one of your ram sticks and testing them one at a time with memtest.
Last edited by kilgoretrout (2011-10-19 12:36:06)