Maximum PC

I am having a lot of grief with my HP Pavillion dv9700 Notebook PC. It might take 5 or 6 button pushings to get it to turn on. The Restart selection just turns to off most of the time. This happens before and after a reinstallation of the operating system. I took it to a shop and they said hey could find nothing wrong. I wonder what they did. The battery needs replacing. Could this be a silver bullet soultion? Is there any hope?

And, I'm guessing that the failure-to-start occurs even with AC power connected (in other words, it's plugged in)?
There is the possibilty that the battery is trashed to the point that it's causing an overload of the power supply (remote, but possible.) And, easy to (dis)prove: take the battery out. Try to start it on AC power alone (yes, a laptop will function with no battery.)

It looks like you have delt with what I was talking about. I ordered a new battery.

Once or twice, yes.
I take it that the lappy works correctly when the battery is pulled?

The strange vices all went away without the battery. I have a brother in law that needs to know about this too.

What's this mean!? You fixed it with a battery!? Then relay that to your brother. Otherwise, "everything is fine, so tell me what to fix". If it's the exact same problem, tell HIM what you did.

(Batteries are about the same as computers though)

I have the cure for cancer, but my brother inlaw wants to know what you think.