I have a gateway 2500 laptop with intermittent boot up problems. I sent it to Gateway and (of course) everything worked fine for them but the problem remains. When the power button is pressed, you hear a low hum and see the power light but the fan does not turn on and the screen remains blank. After about 50 tries at doing this, I will hear the hum, the fan and then some light. Every time I begin to see some script, it boots up fully and normally (Windows 98). I have determined that there is an electrical short somewhere between the power button and the hard drive. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Another strange component is that this boot up/power problem usually occurs after a "lock up". The lock ups occur anytime but even if I am doing something simple like using Word and leave the computer for 10 minutes. When I return the screen and mouse are frozen. I am convinced that these are all tied to the same problem.

hey i do alot of laptop work, andit sounds like either a power management problem (very unlikely) or a heat problem, try running the laptop in a cold room, or with a small fan blowing in the back of the case where the little fan is, and see what it does. Also, has it been dropped? maybe there is a cable loose inside. Hey it happens!!! Good Luck Fixittt@hotmail.com

Well, it has never been dropped but I sure feel like dropping it now. Its so frustrating. Gateway already checked out all of the connections and nothing was loose but they did "preventive maintenance" like making sure the processor edges/motherboard were secure which has caused problems with others. This did not fix it. The computer is completely cool since nothing is happening--just the power light and low grade hum is present.

I had a Toshiba laptop that hummed. The fan was froze and after rapping on it and spinning the fan blade with a screwdriver blade, the fan worked okay after that.