Dell Inspiron 3500 won't turn on

[Woodcycl]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3500 that won't power on. Hitting the Power button causes the 3 LEDs to light up for a second and the power stays on for about 2 seconds, then it shuts down -- no POST. I rebuilt the laptop with Win2000 a week ago and it ran fine. It's an old PII laptop with a Ni-Cad Battery.

Dell has a KB Article about using the reset pin-hole button -- but that didn't work. Then, the next step is removing each and every possible component (i.e. battery, CD-ROM, floppy, HD, memory (except for one), PCMCIA card, etc.) and then trying it with ONLY AC and then ONLY with battery. But, nothing has worked so far -- same results.

Could this be a problem with the Standby/Hibernate mode? Could the old Ni-Cad battery drained so far down that it won't turn on?

Thoughts on getting this old thing powered on are appreciated.

[Sterling_Aug]

I would replace the system board and processor.

[Woodcycl]

I would replace the system board and processor

Good timing -- Dell just replied to my tech support request with a similar response.

Given the age of the laptop, it would be better to scrap this one and buy a new one.

Thanks for the information

[r8500]

*****, what are you going to do with that laptop if you replace it?

Edit: Unbelieveable, I cant say W o o d y when refering to your screen name, or it gets blocked. Nice.

[ukulele]

It is quite possible that the battery is too low or no good. A bad battery can cause problems with the charger too. Test it under a load and see how long it stays lit before you junk the computer. You can always just connect a headlight bulb from a car to for a few minutes. If it goes dead real fast then you have a bad battery. The charger can be tested by putting a volt meter on the battery terminal contacts when the system is in the charging mode. If it is not reading higher voltage then the battery, then it is not charging.

[ukulele]

Originally posted by Woodcycl
Good timing -- Dell just replied to my tech support request with a similar response.

Given the age of the laptop, it would be better to scrap this one and buy a new one.

Thanks for the information

Of course Dell is going to tell you that if it is off warranty. LOL

[rraehal]

I have an inspiron 5000 I am working on for a friend. It does the exact same thing. I disassembled the entire laptop. I cleaned the plastic to remove the dirt and reassembled the laptop. I determined that removing the processor would exhibt the same symptom. No Post and turn off after a couple of seconds. I also tried with no RAM and did not get beeps. I think this behavior is because the mainboard died.

In the laptop I am working on, I belive it is because the CPU fan stopped working. When I fixed it, the laptop would turn on, the drives would spin up and then it would shut down. (Maybe this has to do with reassembling as well, but before I replaced the fan, I had high pitch noise coming from the laptop. Maybe this one overheated and burned the mainboard.

[Sterling_Aug]

I work on Dells and that is typically what needs to be replaced.