M1330 seems to have just died... Please advise!

I was just using my laptop tonight, and as it was about to die I went to plug in the charger. The instant I plugged it in, my laptop shut down entirely. I tried using backup batteries and chargers, but no matter what I try the laptop shows no signs of life. Also, when the charger alone is plugged into an outlet there is a small green light on it which glows. When I plug it into my laptop, however, the light instantly turns off. The same does not happen when I plug it into my roommate's Dell.

Obviously I will be contacting Dell, but I want to post here and see if any of the wise minds of NotebookReview have experience with something similar. Thanks in advance for any responses!

 

Sounds like some sort of Short has occurred in your laptop, definitely call dell support and get that fixed, i would also advise not to plug it in in the meantime.

 

It sounds like part of the motherboard's power circuit shorted. Not much you can do other than replace the motherboard.

 

that sounds exactly like what happened to me about 3 weeks ago.

someone came out and replaced the motherboard (for the 5th time) and now its working just fine again.

 

Thanks for all of the quick responses. I spoke will Dell's online technical support and they'll be sending out a technician to replace the motherboard... again. On the bright side, this will be killing two birds with one stone since I've been having heat problems lately... again.

 

How low was the battery level?

One of the cells in the battery can reverse polarity if its near zero voltage. Probably shorted and zapped the board

 

Well I got an automated voice mail this morning informing me that the replacement part is on back order, so there goes the rapid fix I was hoping for. Is there any regularity in how long these things normally take? This is terrible timing for me as I have a great deal of work to do over the next week and not having a working computer makes things quite a bit more complicated.

 

The onsite technician came today and replaced the motherboard only to realize that Dell forgot to send a new heatsink. Now the computer turns on but the fan goes from low to medium to high and then everything shuts down before getting past the Dell splash screen, so it seems I have to wait until next week now. Sweet...