I own an Inspiron 8600 and the battery has been on it’s way out for quite some time now. There is also a short in the power cord near the prongs from pulling it out the wall over the years. (I can always confirm the cord is fuctioning by checking whether the LED light on the power supply box is illuminated.) The battery lasts about 5 minutes, which is long enough to go into standby if the laptop is unplugged. There is one other problem: whenever I close my laptop, it will go to standby as normal. However, while in my laptop bag, it will mysteriously come one and sometimes back off. Eventually the battery will die. Obviously something is loose near the little popup thingy that detects whether the laptop is open/closed. (similar to a refridgerator)
With that being said, my laptop has worked until one day it would no longer power on. The power adapter still functions (LED light), but the battery light no longer flashes, and the fan or nothing else will respond. Here’s the kicker: when I press down near the power button or any where above the keyboard, whoala! The battery light returns to the normal flashing. If I let go, it stops. If I try to power the unit on while pressing down, it doesn’t respond. One day I randomly tried and the computer powered on as normal. I shut it down and it never came on again. (Obviously I saved everything I could to an external hard drive when it mysteriously started working!)
So I have ruled out the power adapter and battery, since those were preexisting conditions; the cord must work if I can get the battery light to come on, and the laptop battery still lasts about 5 minutes.
So do you believe there is simply something loose from being jarred, or is this signs of a dying motherboard?
(I’m sorry this is so wordy; I just wanted to give as much information as possible to avoid wasting your time.)
