M1530 won't startup -> hard drive issue?

Hi,

Today I decided to run the built-in pre-boot diagnosis tool of my XPS M1530 as the hard drive was making some beeps from time to time. I also suspected there was a problem with RAM memory..

In the middle of the RAM memory test, the computer crashed, and since that moment it just won't start up..

I called Dell technical support (which was quite a hassle, as I'm in Canada and bought the laptop in France) and they eventually told me that they were "99.9% sure the problem came from the hard drive" and that they were going to ship me a new one..

I'm quite sceptical here.. if there is a problem with the hard drive, the OS won't start.. but.. here I just have nothing at all when I press the "power" button.. no lights, no sound, nothing.. doesn't it look like more a motherboard or GPU issue?

Thanks for your advice..

 

Take out the hard drive and see if it boots. The laptop should get into BIOS without a hard drive. If it doesn't, your problem probably isn't with the HDD.

It's possible that your memory might've gone bad. You can try running on either one of your two DIMMs and seeing if it'll start. A bad memory stick will preclude booting... but no response at all; I think that's a bad sign.