Dell CPI N series boot up

Recently a customer brought an old dell CPI Laptop to me with no wall powersupply no hard drive or no CD-rom drive saying she bought it at a local hospital. I did confirm the purchase with the hospital however they don’t garuntee the laptop is in working order.I ordered the powersupply(as the battery was dead) and the laptop attempts to start flashing all three LEDs before shutting itself off. I am hesitant to order the OEM Rom drive and Hard Drive for the machine without knowing for sure if this is normal behavior for this model of laptop. Anyone who knows whether or not this is normal I would appreciate a response. Thanks!