Dell XPS M1210 will not power up

I was using my Dell XPS 1210 and the low battery icon came on. I plugged in the laptop and the system froze. Low battery icon didn't go off, cursor wouldn't move, task manager wouldn't start, and system wouldn't power down with power button. I unplugged it, pulled the battery, waited a couple of minutes. Now when I try to power it up, the power comes on, the caps lock and scroll lock lights flash repeatedly. and that's it. about 30-45 seconds later the system powers off. I can't feel the vibration of the hard drive spinning either.

Any ideas? I've been told it's probably the motherboard. but, the warranty had just expired a little over a month before this happened, I bought it Aug 2007.

Thanks for your help.

 

try taking the battery out and un plugging it...

then plug it in, with the battery out

press fn +esc +power

that may fix it...

 

This problem happened with my M1210 a month after it's warranty expired. It has also happened to many others. Sadly, it's your video card that's the problem.

The nvidia chip in the M1210 suffers from the same problems as the 8000 series, but Dell will not acknowledge this. They are neck deep in a pile of **** because every notebook they have sold for over year has a faulty video card. They are cutting losses by not compensating for our faulty motherboards. So now we are stuck with thousand dollar paperweights...

I think a class action lawsuit might ensue because of this. There is a Dell rep blogging about the issue here: (I cannot seem to post links, so put an h at the start of the link)

ttp://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx?PageIndex=11

I will never buy from dell again.