Rebooting Loop

A friend of mine has a HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop. In fact, ours are identical except for a couple of things. One is that theirs is a couple years or so old (mine is new) and theirs has the built-in webcam.

A few months ago their laptop started going in to a reboot loop. When you would shut down or restart the laptop, it would continue to reboot. The BIOS test screen would not come up nor the Windows logo. After rebooting, the HD light would flicker for about five seconds or so and then reboot. Considering that it didn't even post, I suspected motherboard.

I'm no expert on laptop hardware/hardware repair. Give me a PC and no problem. I can fix just about anything. So, I suggested they bring it to a local repair shop. Unfortunately there's only a couple of them locally. They couldn't fix the problem so they sent it off to a company. They had the laptop for over three months.

The repair shop said they company they sent it too had to order an infrared light bulb from China. This light bulb would allow them to inspect the motherboard. If it was repairable, they would repair the motherboard and save my friend money because it would cost more to replace the motherboard.

I'll admit, I don't know a whole lot about fixing the actual components on a motherboard, however, I have never in my life heard of what they are talking about (i.e. some IR bulb from China). Personally, I think they were trying to block smoke up my friend's butt.

Finally my friend gets their laptop back. There is no "detailed" repair manifest. Just a printed invoice for a repair and some scribbling writing that is illegible. In addition, the panel for the speakers and touch-sensitive media buttons was not replace properly when the company put the laptop back together. So, it took the owner of the shop about 20+ minutes to get it to fit the way it should.It cost my friend about $285.

Well, not even a whole week later the laptop starts the same thing. I go with my friend to bring it back. Some other guy is there. I know the guy that is there. He's an idiot at computers. One time he has some people convinced their PC was infected with a virus. I knew it was no virus. They had accidentally installed AOL and the AOL protocols were interfering with their regular dial-up. Luckily I was able to uninstall AOL and reinstall the TCP/IP. This was about eight years ago. Back when AOL messed up dial-up connections (even after uninstall of the AOL software).

Back on track. This guy that I knew was not very technically knowledgeable (more of a tinkerer than an actual technician) was now working at this shop. The starts taking the laptop apart trying to get to the CPU fan. He says the fan went out b/c it would not come on. So, he gets a can of compressed air, ends up breaking the trigger, and wonders why it doesn't work. He has to get another can of compressed air and he forces the fan to come on.

After he does that, my friend asked me why the fan sounded sick. I told them it sounded like the barrings were broke in the fan. So, he said he has to send it off, but that the CPU fan probably went out on it.

I talked to a friend of mine that know a lot about computers. I explained the situation to him. He said it sounds like the motherboard and they should have just replaced it. As for the fan, he said a DC fan only comes on when it needs to, that it does not come on all the time like a regular fan in a PC. He also said that you should NEVER force a DC fan. He said I was correct in the assumption in the barrings were broken because the "technician" probably broke them. I did notice then the guy tried to turn the fan with his finger it wouldn't turn. This told me right there that he probably shouldn't have been trying to force anything.

I would like to know what the hardware gurus here think of the situation. That is:

1. Was I right in regards to the motherboard being the initial problem with the laptop?
2. Did the "technician" break the CPU fan when he forced air through it?

I asked them if the repair was going to be free since it seemed to be a continuing issue. They said it depends. So, if they try to use the "CPU fan just went out" as the excuse and try to charge, my friend might just have to take them to small claims court. Fortunately it's only a $50 filing fee in this small town.