StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Very recently, I've been unable to boot up my laptop. Every so often, the two green lights indicating that it's functioning will light up, but when I press the power button, nothing happens. Occasionally, it will go to the boot screen, only to die out after a few seconds. When plugged in, the light indicating that it is charging up the battery does not appear.

I don't know what could have possibly caused this; I turned it off before I went to bed one night and the next day it wouldn't start up. Getting it sent in to Dell to be fixed is absolutely not an option, and there's no place it can be repaired if the problem is one of hardware, so if anyone can suggest any non-complicated hardware repairs or some sort of software fix (maybe the harddrive is corrupted? I dunno), I would be greatly appreciated. Even a simple diagnosis would be appreciated.

Sounds an awful lot like a bad motherboard. I had the same thing happen to a Dell about two years ago, albeit not out of the blue (someone spilled liquid into it while it was on). I bought a used motherboard on ebay for about 80 bucks (Dell was offering to sell me a new one for 700 plus shipping plus tax); it's not nearly as difficult to replace as you might think.

To do a little self-diagnosis, try to get into your BIOS setup. If you can't, it's almost certainly your motherboard (or CPU or RAM). You can check the RAM by trying to boot with only one of your DIMMs in at a time. If it boots with one but not the other, obviously one of your chips is bad. If you can get into the BIOS, set up for a CD-boot; if the CD boots, you have a HD problem.

To get some free help from Dell, tell them you want an estimate on replacement parts and/or out-of-warranty repairs.

First of all, check the AC adapter. If you have a multimeter, you can use that, make sure it's getting sufficient voltage out.

Second, check the DC socket for damage, if the socket's loose or damaged, it can make the connection fail.

Third, try removing the mains and battery and holding the circuit open for a few seconds (10-20), then try powering from the mains only. If there's no lights and no response, I'd suspect the power circuits have had it. Sometimes they're part of the mainboard, sometimes there's a seperate power board.

If the mainboard's fucked, it'd probably be cheaper to buy a new laptop than pay for repairs.

make sure the cooling fan is spinning