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why won’t my laptop power up?

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Hi everyone I have a dell latitude cpxh500gt laptop. It worked great till my motherboard crashed and it was still under warranty so dell replaced it and got a technician to install it. Less then 2 months after the install my computer crashed again and was no longer under warranty. Now when i press the power button, the power on bar only goes on for less then a second and nothing happens no sign of the processor or fan even getting juice. Its just completely silent! I have recently bought another motherboard w/ processor for it and it does the same thing. The company i bought the motherboard from said they tested it before it was shipped and it was working fine. I tryed it with ram without ram with hard drive and without with just power and with just battery. So I don’t no whether im doing something wrong or if they just sent me a bad board too? I hope that by the symptom I described sumone can tell me what the problem is.
It would be greatly appreciated thank you very much!!!

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Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

I don’t know if this will help but i forgot to add it in my question: when the power light lights up for less then a second so do the caps lock and the scroll lock but nothing on the number lock.

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

By the way the lights don’t stay on for less then a second, I timed it and they stay on for almost 5 seconds but no signs of powering on. Also the number lock is the only one that flashes for less than a second, all the other lights stay on for almost 5 of course besides the thinking light that doesnt come on at all.

I can duplicate those symptoms

In reply to Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

On my D600 if I remove the RAM, the lights or LED’s remain on for about 5 secs the nothing. I think this is a RAM issue, try replacing with known good ram first.

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

Bad motherboard would be my first guess.

Fried CPU is my second.

Demon power supply, which is a power supply wildly varying in the voltage and/or current being produced, would be my third.

How long did Dell warranty the repairs for? Most times it is 90 days on parts and labor.

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

Have seen your same symptoms twice before on Dell notebooks. In both cases, it was a faulty motherboard.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.

Look in your owner’s manual. There are some troubleshooting steps for when notebook won’t power on. It’s worth a shot.

Dalton

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

Hello,

I have seen this many times before on the CPX,J,T etc. line of Dell’s Latitiude Laptop series.

It almost never the motherboard itself causing the problem. It’s usually either the Ram or Ram caddy being faulty. Or the power up board, which is a secondary board that snaps onto the motherboard inside. If you do a little research about this by looking on Ebay for a used one, most sellers will go into detail about what the symptoms of a bad Power up board are.

I’m sorry I don’t remember the official name for the part, but trust me on this, I’ve replaced several.

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

You need to contact Dell and explain the situation to them. You have a event history. They didn’t fix the problem that caused the motherboard to go out.

You have rights. Even for the warranty repairs.

The days of something dying the day after your warranty is up are gone.

Lee

I’ve got the same problem

In reply to why won’t my laptop power up?

Have you found a resolution to your problem. My motherboard went on the fritz and I had it replaced under warranty. Now the notebook won’t power up. It starts the lights and then shuts down.
Help

May be a simple fix – Ensure the RAM is seated properly

In reply to I’ve got the same problem

I just had these identical symptoms after trying to upgrade my RAM by replacing it. Then got same symptoms when I put the old RAM back in. It wasn’t until after seeing hotdogger11’s post and a few others about RAM, especially one that stated that the identical symptoms happen with no RAM at all that I got suspicious and opened another laptop and noticed that I wasn’t seating the RAM chip in “all the way” (e.g. wasn’t pushing it far enough in while it was angled at 45 degrees before snapping it down into place). Seated it properly and now it works fine. So check your RAM is seated properly.

Reply To: why won’t my laptop power up?

In reply to May be a simple fix – Ensure the RAM is seated properly

Thanks for the help. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop with the same start up problem…..on for about 5 seconds then shuts off. I removed and reinstalled RAM and worked but then problem returned so took RAM out of slot #1 and put it into slot #2 and this fixed the problem. This was after I had replaced the DC circuit board per Dell’s recommendation which did not fix problem. Old thread but relevant information. Thanks.

dv1000 fixed with reseeding of ram.

In reply to May be a simple fix – Ensure the RAM is seated properly

thanks much

[Author]

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