D620 won't power on...

I have a Dell D620 here, probably about 4-5 years old. I'm going to guess it has not been touched in a year, but possibly two or three. It will not power up. If the battery is installed, nothing. If the battery is installed and it's plugged in, nothing. If the battery is removed and it's plugged in, nothing. The charging light does come on when it's plugged in.

Here's a weirdness: When the battery is installed and it's plugged in, there is a faint clicking (beeping?) sound coming from the chassis. I've removed the hard drive to ensure that's not it. If you pull the battery OR the AC adapter, the noise stops. The noise is VERY faint - you have to have your ear to the chassis (and look like a TOOL) in order to hear it. I only noticed it in a moment when the office was dead silent, and it was sitting 2' away.

Anyone ever experienced this? I'll buy a cheap battery if it'll make it power up, but I don't want a useless D620 battery hanging around if it won't.

 

For starters;

I don't recommend 3rd party batteries or AC adapters. Only buy OEM.

I would;

- Test your AC adapter with a multi-meter

- Use a known good Dell branded 90 watt AC adapter

- Remove battery and AC adapter and hold down the power button for 30 seconds.

- After that you may have a defective motherboard/power circuitry issues with your motherboard.

 

Well, buying a $150 Dell battery to preserve a laptop that's worth $200 on a good day doesn't make sense, so while on a technical level I agree with you, financially that ain't gonna happen.

AC adapter is a genuine Dell 90w from a recent Vostro, and works fine. I've tried the remove battery/hold button trick, but since this laptop has been discharged for at least a year, discharging the capacitors probably isn't a remedy here. I tried it for grins, still nothing.

I'm really trying to determine whether the D620 requires a battery to operate or not... a massively discharged battery that is incapable of holding a charge would result in a no-start situation for a laptop that requires a battery to power up...

 

You don't have to buy OEM batteries from Dell. Plenty of Ebay resellers of OEM batteries. Make sure they are OEM and not OEM compatible.

Hrm...well laptops don't need a battery plugged in, if it is on AC power. I just tried it with my D620.

Point in case, seems like your motherboard has power circuitry issues or is genuinely defective.

 

Well, some laptops do - my sister's couple year old Acer does, for example. But if your D620 works without a battery and mine doesn't, yup, seems like something is seriously wrong. Thanks!

 

As a last ditch effort, take the laptop apart and check everything. Make sure the CPU is seated properly, RAM installed, etc. The faint clicking sound doesn't give me much confidence though...

 

It will work without the battery. I have a D620 so I know this for a fact.
Take out everything apart from 1 stick of DRAM (i.e. battery, other RAM, HDD wireless adapters etc.). My educated guess is that the DC-DC power section has gone bad, possibly a capacitor has dried out. The click/buzz is the DC-DC winding up and down. It's probably time to part it out if you can't get it working.