Email sent.

 

Untrue and Untrue.

This used to be common practice long ago.
You'd just swap the hard drive into the new computer and just install new drivers.
Whoever says you cannot do this is an idiot, the computer will boot. It will give you a lot of issues, but it will boot. Things were a bit simpler back then and it was a bit easier to do if you needed to save files or couldn't get some files again.
Things were not as easy when we just had floppies and a few CD's.

The COA is bound to the case of the laptop, not the hardware, so he can install Vista back on if he wanted too as long as he has the shell.

As for the other comment, see above.

When I buy laptops or help others pick out laptops, I always suggest going with one that has a modular style video card in case this happens. It still is not common-place for the video card to be modular.

I cannot find any information to support or un-support that the model W and model P boards are different or the same.
From my experience they are different, but its hard to tell.

In cases like this before, I'd just order both and compare then re-sell the other on ebay for the same price.

Yeah, during post an external monitor will work right away.

The beeping indicates there are other hickups though.

It's kinda funny that we are so advanced on computers, but the bio's is still 20+ years old. haha.

 

I'm talking program wise. As you know programs will only boot on certain os versions. I left a word out too. A motherboard would cost about the same as another used machine would cost that works to do what's needed done. To save the programs just run it as a separate external drive with all the files from the original machine. Then everything is there that is need to run the programs such as ae. I have a few old games I boot off an old hard drive that will run on vista but not install in it because they are from XP. And this machine couldn't attempt to do a virtual machine.

 

Some programs.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong but it's my understanding that you can only access files from an external, remote drive and you cannot actually launch the application/programs on that drive.

...And with help from ya'll I am seriously looking at getting a good used machine to try.

 

Consider yourself corrected.
I do it all the time.

There are a few exceptions with it though.

 

It depends on how the bios on the computer is set up...but a HDD is a HDD.

 

As long as all the needed files are available it will load a program.

 

Don't forget registry entries.

Y'all are just a bunch of nerds in diesel clothing!!!

 

Oh right, the registry stuff, I kind of remember that now.

Thanks!

 

That's the big thing with leaving all the files on the drive.

 

If you put the drive in an enclosure and plug it into another computer, the host O/S will not have any of the registry entries that a program may have installed originally. The registry is specific to each running (Windows) O/S.

The registry entries may have licensing info or simple environment variables. There are ways of extracting this info, but think of the registry as a poor-man's database. There are many hooks and entries that would have to be included. It's a mess.

If the program depends on this registry info, it's a crapshoot on whether it will run or not. If it's a basic old-style program, then it should work. If it's a newer style program, then it likely won't. The odds are pretty wild here.

It is pretty harmless to try this method, though.

 

You can always move the registry files to the new registry.

And most programs will write new registry entries when they are missing.
Unless it has to do with locking the program to the computer.

 

May I suggest a few simple things to try before you go to the effort of buying new parts/machine:

1. Remove the memory one stick a time, it may make a difference. If the computer boots, you're holding the problem.
2. Remove all hardward you can (CD drives, sound cards, hard drives, everything) and attempt to boot. If successful, replace one at a time until boot failure occurs. You've found the problem. Despite what the tech told you, most laptop components are NOT integrated into the motherboard. Usually just video, sometimes sound, and network card. Only video will cause boot failure. Memory, drives, CPU, and wireless network are usually installed separately.
3. As a last resort with computer completely turn apart, attempt to boot w/o memory or CPU. Beep code should change. If it does change, the problem is likely the video card (which is probably integrated into the mother board). If it doesn't change, you probably do have a dead motherboard.
4. I also would suggest checking the power output of the AC/DC convertor. If that is running low DC voltage, the CPU/memory will not function correctly and throw a beep code.

What I suggest is simply getting a new computer. Getting used components may or may not solve the problem. Sometimes it creates even more. The software you own the license to. It doesn't matter what computer it happens to be installed on. I always recommend that people simply contact the vendors of the software they are worried about and explain the situation. Provided the companies are still in business, the licenses can almost always be recovered. Computers crash and companies are used to dealing with it.

Good luck with it. BTW, if you need help, let me know. I don't think I'm too close to you, but I've been dealing with computers for a long time (worked as a techie for a couple years). I could probably walk you through some stuff over the phone/IM if you think it would help.

 

Some great stuff there Nick and I agree with nearly all of it. A point I'd make is that for laptops, it's almost always the mainboard. Otherwise it's the videocard. The reason is that they are usually cooked by heat. First of all, they use terrible thermal paste (or heat-tape - ug) and most laptops use a common heatsink for both the CPU and video chips. This leads to a warmer environment in the first place and people rarely ever clean the fan or heatsink assemblies. I've found full cats inside of laptops.

I also appreciate your troubleshooting steps. Good stuff to try, but my money is still on the board. It's just too common.

The other random point I would make is that consumer level HP products are pretty crappy. The enterprise level stuff is great, but they don't know how to build solid consumer level systems.

Still a techie and always a techie here!