HELP: 9300 just died

My 9300 was running fine, but all of the sudden one of the fans started running really fast. This has happened once before, and a reboot fixed it. So I turned the power off and now all I get is an orange battery indicator and the 7 media control buttons on the front are all lit up.

Pressing the power button doesn't do anything.

I'm still under warranty, but is there something I can try before calling Dell?

 

One thing comes to mind:
1) Turn everything off.
2) Unplug
3) Remove Battery
4) Hold Power button for about a minute
5) Plug back in
6) Try turning it on

Usually for severe problems, I recommend trying that first. You have no idea how many times I've fixed PCs by doing that. Hardware doesn't work, but that procedure drains any stray electricity that could cause some odd behavior.

 

battery light is green now and the numlock indicator is lit up, but that's it

before i tried this, it'd try to start itself a few times but didnt get far


the battery indicator is flashing intermittently now (still green) :/

 

If you have to go to these extremes to make it work, I'd send it back ASAP. You don't want it to start this sort of behavior after it's out of warranty. It should work flawlessly, no ifs ands or butts. You paid good money, make them fix it.

 

Another good troubleshooting step for notebooks is to remove any Customer Removable parts (hard drive, optical drive, battery, etc) and start the computer up to see if the problem changes. If it does, then one of the parts that was removed is most likely the problem.

Unfortunately, from what you describe I don't think that is the case here. It sounds to me like something on the motherboard is the problem. If you haven't already done so, I definitely recommend calling in to Dell support to get this fixed. If you prefer you can also contact me directly (PM) and I will be happy to help you get the computer fixed.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate