Computer crashed...need diagnosis help

The power supply for laptops is the brick that plugs into the wall.

Edit: you could try a universal power supply like they sell at best buy and places. They have different plugs and voltages to work with different laptops.

 

good to know, but if it was the plug, wouldnt it work with the battery? what are the chances that the power supply and the battery both went at the same time?

 

If the battery pack shorted and sent a surge downstream and cooked off the charging circuit,,,pretty good. I've seen it happen. *shrug* Then again, I've seen with my own two eyes two completely non-related win32 compiled executables from different sides of the planet have the same CRC. Once. Odds are funny that way.

 

Well as a few other people have mentioned, you seem to have a hardware failure. Your BIOS is not even flashing which is a bad indicator. Looks like you've done the first checks for a bad battery/power supply by removing the battery and plugging directing in. Also you mentioned that the problem is intermittent which is another possible indicator of a motherboard failure. Those problems are often difficult to track even using diagnostics. Sometimes a motherboard can develop the smallest of faults that doesn't even become apparent until the motherboard is warmed up or some other condition causes it to show up. IMHO, I think there's a big possibility of motherboard failure for you. Hope that is not the correct diagnosis and good luck!

 

As said before, your issues boil down to processor or motherboard. It's not RAM because RAM does not affect the BIOS from beeping or showing a splash screen. If you wanted, you could remove all your RAM and boot, which forces the BIOS to post a beep code.

determining proc or mobo is harder, I haven't got an easy way other than stick in a separate proc.

 

And if you cannot see anything on the screen, you might try connecting an external display to the VGA port on the laptop.

James

 

Uhm. *cough* Actually, and I'm not trying to be a dick here, but this isn't 100% correct. RAM can be bad enough to the point that it shorts the whole mess out when power is applied to the board, eliminating the ability to POST or give error codes. Granted, we're talking hen's teeth rare here. But I have seen it with my own eyes, and swapping in fresh RAM cleared the whole thing up.

 

I've had a couple Dells do the same exact thing, it's your Motherboard.

 

OK wasn't clear on where I was going with that. I'm saying that you should remove all RAM and start things up, which should give you a good way to isolate RAM issues.

 

this was my exact thought. i can't tell you how many service calls i have been on to have the owner describe a similar situation.

look at the capacitors near the CPU especially under the green plastic airflow channel near the rear of the case. if one of them is bubbled (convex) or leaking that's your problem. it has been a few years since i did strictly IT work, but that is the number one failure common to dell desktops...

so anyone who said motheroard i agree, they fail more than any other component on dells. at least in my experience.

edit: i just noticed you are talking about a laptop, it's the same issue just harder to detect because the capacitors are smaller.

 

It is probably not a RAM issue, because RAM failures will cause beep codes when the motherboard POSTs.

I would be willing to bet your motherboard is going or has gone bad. With laptops, it really is easiest to just chuck it and buy a new one, dude.

 

Thanks for all the responses guys...the computer does beep when I try to run with no ram in..the mobo is 120 off egay, I'm gonna go that route..I actually enjoy fixing things like this..

I paid 1200 (after rebates) for this laptop and 120 to get it up and running again is worth it to me...120 won't get me a laptop anywhere as good as this one..500 still won't...bought this close to 4 years ago and it still has better tech in it than most laptops sold today

 

Quick question though...I should get my hdd reformatted before plugging it to a new mobo correct?

 

I just fixed a problem kind of similar to this with a desktop where it wouldn't post...it was a dead HUB...but with the laptop, it could be what everyone else is saying also (mobo, ram). Also, the video changing before crash is weird also...so, what I'm trying to get at is maybe try the HUB before anything else, if that's not it, you're only out a couple bucks.

 

No. Windows may detect that it's a different motherboard, but if it's the same model, it should still work. Do not reformat.

 

Wtf is a "HUB"?

(I'm assuming you're not talking about ethernet.)

 

If you are getting beep codes when running without RAM, then it could actually be that the RAM has gone bad in a way that is causing it to shit itself when attempting to POST.

Laptop memory is fairly swappable - do you have any friends that you can borrow a stick from? Also, what kind of RAM? - you may be able to try one stick and then the other if you have two.

 

HUB - Hold up battery

aka the BIOS battery. It's the button battery that's on your motherboard

 

We call that a CMOS battery around here, chief.

 

right...

owned again