Laptop Won't Start [RESOLVED]

*sigh* Alright here's the deal. A couple times in the past my laptop has done this thing where it doesn't turn on when I press the power button. It works fine the previous night but then just won't turn on when I press the power button the next day.

Nothing starts. No noises, no sign of any activation when I press the power button. The only life I get from the laptop is the little light indicating it's charging when I stick the power chord in it.

But if I wait a while and keep repeatedly pressing the power button, or press it after a while or press it a couple times, eventually it'll start up again. I also shake the laptop around a bit sometimes. I'm not sure if it helps or not, but so far it hasn't hurt any as far as I know.

Then it goes weeks, or months without having this problem again.

Well, it's been months, and it's having the problem again. I press the power button and it won't start. Any idea why my laptop does this?

Additional info:
-The laptop does not feel hot.
-The battery has terrible life, but the machine wont turn on even if I take the battery out and try to run it directly through plugging in.
-It's an HP Windows Vista Pavillion dv5 series

might you tell me what type of laptop you have?
is it  a dell?

It's an HP, Windows Vista Pavillion dv5 series.

BEHOLD:
I am talking to you now from my laptop! It works!

The problem was nothing like I thought it would be... although I didn't think much since I had absolutely no idea what it WAS. But I didn't think it was THIS:

I unscrewed every screw in my laptop, putting each one on one of several rows of tape I had carefully organized to reflect the back of my laptop, so that I knew where each screw went. I then took off every cap that was meant to detach from below it, and turned my laptop right site-up. The hard drive stumbled out, attached to my laptop by a wire. So I looked underneath that.

Inside I saw two wires, each with a rather bulky, metal head. One wire was clamped to a chip by the head. The other wire was loose. So I re-attached the wire to a part of the chip, judging by the connection pattern underneath the wire and the only part of the chip that could fit it.

And then I found I was able to turn the machine on.

In other words, it was just a loose wire that needed re-attaching.

But, this has woken me up! I need to start backing up my files, because my laptop needs a lot of work done.

Thats great! you got it to work.
I asked dell, because I have a dell laptop that had the exact same problem