My Inspiron E1705/9400 refuses to turn on!

Hi people,

I have been having this problem for about a year now but it's been getting a lot more frequent.

What happens is that when I press the power button, the power indicator goes on (and stays on) but my laptop refuses to boot. Screen stays completely black as if it was never turned on and it doesn't actually boot either.

I believe it doesn't even get to the BIOS stage.

Note that since I had this laptop (about almost 4 years now) the battery has always been in although I rarely ever run on battery.

A few symptoms I noticed along the way:
1. When I do not have AC but just battery, it tends to be even more difficult to turn on at times.

2. When I do have AC and flip the power on at the mains switch, the charger light starts flashing really quickly (all green). Sometimes, not only the charger light but ALSO the blue lights at the front where you control volume and such. Sometimes only the blue lights at front flash and not the charger. This happens BOTH with and without battery in the laptop.

3. Out of maybe 10 power on attempts, only 1 succeeds these days. And I seem to have to press it at a certain time interval (or maybe I'm making this up, been driving me nuts) to get it to really turn on.

4. Recently on one of the successes, I got a screen after BIOS warning me that there was NO charger attached or at least not genuine (it is genuine) and the thing was running on battery. Found that really strange. Unplugging the charger fully and leaving it in pieces for a while fixed it though.


So yeah, I have no idea what is wrong with the laptop. I ran the diagnostics and it found no problems whatsoever.

I am tempted to say it is the charger, but why wouldn't the laptop sometimes turn on even with just the battery in?

But then I doubt it can be both charger and battery. Maybe the power unit in the laptop?

Please help, its driving me nuts and its such a chore to even get it booting up at all!

Thanks!

 

Probably something along these lines. Unfortunately all this stuff is built into the motherboard and can't be replaced without replacing said board.

 

I'm considering going for the AC adapter replacement as the first "treatment" if you will. The diagnostics suggest that nothing's wrong, but I guess those don't usually show anything until its really broke?

I am quite concerned though that both battery and charger are having the same issue on their own and together, though I guess the adapter is the bigger issue since it gives off those flashes...unless it is indeed the mainboard.

 

Try using the adapter with another Dell notebook... it should work in anything made between now and 2004-2005. If it works fine, it works fine.

 

Hi, i have the same problem with my inspiron 6400 e1505,
it happened suddenly the laptop power up (led only) with hd and dvd activity but no display.
i tried everything, resetting rams, booting from battery, disconnecting all components (hd, dvd), connecting external monitor without any success.
i am afraid the main board is faulty!! which make this 3 years laptop useless.
any suggestions.

 

wkbag, sounds very similar to mine (except that I can still get it to turn on after x attempts).

I also hear the DVD power up (sometimes) but nothing else. Not sure about the hard drive (how it sounds that is).

I ordered a replacement power adapter which should arrive in 2-3 days and hope it will help, but we'll see.

Commander_Wolf: Only have this one I'm afraid. Power adapter does work, just gives these weird issues.

 

Keep me informed of the result.
hoping for the best.

 

Do you have a external monitor to connect to the E1505?