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My wife's old HP Pavilion dv6000 suddenly shut off during the first bootup after being powered off for about 12 days (I saw the Windows XP splash screen, walked out of the room, and when I came back 2 minutes later the machine was off).

After that point, we no longer get any response at all from pushing the power button: no beep, lights on the chassis, hard drive or fan spinning up, etc.

My first suspicion with that problem is the power supply just died but one thing was making me wonder about it: there's a blue LED ring around the jack where the power supply plugs in, and that light still works — it's on whenever the laptop is connected to power. If the power supply were dead, could that light still light up? Isn't there a little BIOS battery on the board that could be powering that?

Also wondering, could this be a battery issue? The battery has worn down over the years to less than one hour of power when it's off the plug, and I'm wondering if it died completely.

I tried starting the machine plugged-in-but-battery-removed (no change), and also took it halfway apart to see if the connection from the power button to the board is compromised, but that seemed fine.

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It's not the battery given your last paragraph. – Tom Wijsman Aug 20 '11 at 19:05

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It takes very little power to light a LED. Your power supply is likely not producing the power needed to power up the machine. Many stores sell generic laptop power supplies that can be made to work with any laptop. I would suggest buying one of those and see if you can power up the machine.

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Thanks — before I do that, isn't there a power supply on the motherboard as well? Is there a way that I can rule out whether that has gone kaput before I buy anything? – RwwL Aug 20 '11 at 19:01
I doubt if the amount of power that is being supplied has changed, unless they smashed the Power Supply in one or another way. – Tom Wijsman Aug 20 '11 at 19:07
Yes it could be the motherboard. But to find out you would need to eliminate the power supply as a possibility. The worst case is you have an extra power supply for a new laptop. And the best case "problem solved". I work with 100s of laptops, their power supplys die all the time. It is the more likely possibility. – Kevin Aug 20 '11 at 19:12
Thanks. All these answers basically say try replacing the power supply first, so I'm marking yours as the accepted answer as you posted first. I was able to drop by a repair shop that, for free, let my try it on another, known-working power supply. Same problem. Oh well. – RwwL Aug 22 '11 at 1:04
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It sounds like that boot worked on what was remaining in the battery, which explains the short duration.

The light means that your power supply is still providing power so you need to actually look at the connections of the power cable between the power supply block and your laptop jack. It could also be that the power circuit inside the laptop is damaged, but first try to see if fiddling (holding it different) does somehow turns the "power supply connected" LED on.

From there, you should be able to figure out whether to get your laptop repaired or to buy a new power supply. If you are in doubt, it would make sense to go for a new power supply first as that costs less...

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Just replace the power adapter. If there is a sign that the battery is charging, your power board is OK. If it won't start with the adapter, your motherboard might be dead. If you can find another dv6000, try it's full battery and examine the result.

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