QuestionsGuy

My laptop has had this issue for almost two days now, so I better seek help here now. It is a Dell Inspiron 1520 about 16 months old and out of warrenty (only had 12 months).

Whenever I try to turn on my laptop, it begins to boot, fans turning on, hardware 'chirping' but then he screen stays black and the system seems to just stop. Only the power light stays on, the others go dull again. It then sits like this.

Sometimes when Ive left it for some time (30mins +) it has suddenly started to boot, sadly the two times that happened, it then froze while loading. Another time I left it running for over 3 hours, I came back and it was really overheating, turnede it off and then on again and it booted.

I know it is not the screen itself (plugged in an external monitor) as Ive had backlight issues before and they act differently.

I have swapped out the RAM with another set and it didnt effect it.


Trouble is I dont think it is even reaching the Dell loading screen, so I cannot access the BIOS or where to boot from.

EDIT: I looked at the stickies but that didnt help my issue.

What could be causing this?

Thanks.

TriggerFinger

Hi,

You mentioned about hooking it up with an external monitor, did you see the laptop boot from there? Were you able to see it go into BIOS setup or Windows on the external monitor?

About overheating, make sure you clean the vents/heatsink areas. Use a can of compressed air to blow out the dust. This is of course not as good as opening it up and cleaning from the inside and reapplying thermal compound.

Regarding the LCD, assuming it is malfunctioning your laptop should work using an external monitor. You should get a good startup everytime. However if you do not get a consistent GOOD startup (external monitor shows blank screen) then it could be something else or a combination of something else and a bad LCD. What I am saying is, be sure you get a consistent good startup with the external monitor EVERY TIME you power the laptop ON.

QuestionsGuy

It not coming up on an external monitor either, thats how i know its not the LCD or screen issue, so no, i cannot reach the BIOS in anyway, nor boot from a CD.

I just did a bit checking. I removed the harddrive, same thing happened on boot. I removed the RAM sticks and it did display the error of the RAM missing (all the lights flashing), so....

I think im looking at something wrong with the motherboard or the CPU...would that sound right from what Ive said?


The fact its not coming up on the screen isnt the big worry, it isnt getting and to display that why...

TriggerFinger

How about taking it apart leaving only the motherboard, a good working RAM, the LCD and the power ON switch. Remove everything else (i.e. hdd, cd drive, wlan card, modem, battery, etc). Connect AC and power ON the laptop. If still the same, remove the LCD and attach an external monitor. If problem persists, consider video/graphics card replacement or motherboard replacement.

Btw, as per this manual you can replace the graphics card separately. I suggest you do that first... or just open it up and see if you have a graphics card installed.

QuestionsGuy

Yep, thats what Ive done with the same results.

Only has an intergerated chipset, so it looks like a motherboard....


If it need a new motherboard, would it be better just to buy a new laptop? Cause the motherboard pratically is the laptop in mine...

TriggerFinger

Did you try taking it apart and running it barebones? As per the manual you can replace the video card as it is NOT integrated in the mobo. I just do not know how much that would cost now. Last time I checked it costs over a hundred in eBay.