XPS M1730 failure

Hi, I have a simple question. My M1730 fails to boot. The lights come on but the screen remains dead and there is no sign of the hard drive starting (but it may be I just can't tell). Tried an external display but no output. Can I assume that this is a motherboard issue or could it be the GPU? Is there a way of checking? Long shot, but any help appreciated.
Thanks.

 

It can be both, you need to check if there are any blinking LEDs at the right hand side of your machine; the blinking sequence dictate exactly a kind of failure, or blinking codes.

You may want to try to:

Remove the battery and AC (RAM is optional, but recommended) and hold down the power button for 1 minute, and the re-insert them again. In simple terms, this will help drain any left over static in the circuitry of your motherboard, which can cause a computer not to boot.

 

I had this a few times with my old Latitude D610. It didn't want to boot from a cold start. I was afraid it had died on me, but after taking out the power supply and the battery it started again. Happy me.