Help DELL Laptop not booting up

[Edmond]

Russ has got a dell laptop and she has a problem. I will type this as she says it

'I press the on button, the fan thingy starts to spin and the cd light comes on, but nothing comes on screen, like nothing dude, its completely black, it doesn't light up or anything and then shuts off again, this takes all of about 2 seconds. Seriously wtf, i think my laptop is in a coma'

Any help please

Thanks

 

[nath]

Not sure but perhaps try shutting off the whole thing, unplug it, take out the battery and leave it for a few minutes then plug in and try again?

 

[Edmond]

She has tried that nath but no joy, i was thinking it was a power supply issue, could the battery be shagged, if so i might have another batt from another dell

Is it worth trying to boot in safe mode? but what 'F' key gets you into safe mode?

Cheers

 

[Edmond]

Ok that seems to have worked, thanks nath.

But is there a problem with the battery that might be causing this?

Thanks again

 

[russell]

Turn it off and turn it on again. I watched enough IT crowd to know this! How come it only worked after Nath suggested it? Thank you- massive rep x

 

[nath]

Not sure tbh, I don't think it'd be a battery problem so much as something clagged on the motherboard. With the battery in it still has power to maintain the problem, as it were. With a laptop if you want to *properly* turn it off and on again, as the IT crowd mantra goes, you need to remove the battery.

I wouldn't worry about it too much for now - see if it happens again and take it from there.

 

[- English -]

my pc once had a similar problem and it was because some artic cooling liquid had spilt from the chip and was short circuiting itsself or something. Maybe something similar is happening, has it recently been banged or could something on the mobo be mislodged?

 

[Kryten]

Laptop power issues can be a bastard to get to grips with - symptoms ranging from it working without the battery but just on mains, running on battery but no mains etc. Laptops have gubbins in called the "charging circuit" - literally just handles the switch between running on mains/battery, both, charging and discharging. Those are really prone to failure (especially on HP laptops). Sometimes it's just a soft failure, therefore the hard-reset Nath suggests is the first thing to check The rest of the time it's rarely as lucky and it's time for a new mainboard, or new laptop.

 

[Edmond]

Thanks fella's, it all seems to be working ok atm. My friends dad has a dell that only runs off the mains, i thiought it was a power issue of some kind, due to it shutting back down almost instantly

Have to se how it goes, its 3yrs old now

 

[soze]

Might be worth checking the hibernation settings (for future reference). I have seen this when a Laptop Hibernates and the battery runs out it can not resume. Removing the power and the battery resets it and brings it back to life.