Studio 1555 won't boot, no display, beeping sounds

Hey guys. I went to turn on my Studio 1555 this morning about an hour ago, and nothing happened. The power light came on, as did the keyboard backlights, but nothing else. The display stayed off and unlit, and the thing started spewing beeps at me. First a series of three loud beeps: one long beep and two shorter ones (beeeeeep beep beep), a slight pause, and then a series of 6 softer short beeps. Dell's website and service manual have been no help, and I can't seem to find these beep codes anywhere. Also, I ran out of warranty months ago.

I've tried removing the memory sticks, swapping them, relocating them, tried different sticks and different slots, removed the WLAN and Bluetooth cards, and removed the hard drive. Help me NBR...you're my only hope!

 

I posted these beeps code http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=432851 not sure if they help you but worth a try.
One thing to do is remove your bios battery for a while then refit it and even replace it with a know working one as your could be dead.

 

Well if those beeps hold true for the 1555, then I'm looking at either chipset or video card failure, both of which pretty much mean I'm looking at a motherboard replacement. Balls. >_<

I'll go try your suggestion of removing the CMOS battery.

 

Hmm. Removing the CMOS battery and replacing it 5 minutes later seems to have worked. Everything appears back to normal (except the date and time - it's now 1 AM on the 16th of June 2008 ). Thanks!

 

I spoke too soon, it seems. I just spend the past hour and a half trying to get into Windows. I would get to the "Starting Windows" screen with the Windows 7 logo, and it would either freeze or go right back to the Dell splash screen. I ran the Fn+power diagnostics, and they all checked out okay, including the additional half hour memory test. Then I booted and hit F8, tried to get into Safe mode, that failed too. Tried F8 again, selected the "Repair" option, it froze before loading. I shut everything off, yanked the hard drive, put it back after ten minutes, booted into repair mode again, tried a System Restore point from two days ago, it said it failed, but when I rebooted, it went into Windows and said it had finished the System Restore.

Quite frankly, I still have no idea what's causing this, how to fix it for good, or if (and when) it will happen again.

 

You know, I feel like something really similar happened to my sister's 1420 soon after she bought it. I'm don't remember if it beeped or not, but I do remember not getting it to work until I pulled out the CMOS battery. I didn't have to go through that System Restore business either.

I don't want to get your hopes up, but said machine has been working fine since then.

 

That's the thing, I've taken the CMOS battery out, replaced it, booted without it, and nothing changes.

 

Hmm...I tried all sorts of combinations of memory sticks in different slots, but right now I'm using just one 2GB stick in Slot B, nothing in Slot A, and it's been working for half an hour. *knock on wood* Does this mean I have a bad memory slot? >_<

 

Nope, never mind. Thing just froze again.

 

I still think it's your cmos battery but if you still have warranty get Dell to replace you mobo or cmos battery.
Sorry to hear you still have problem bro it's a real sh*t but are we over looking something? Get onto Tec support.
Good luck Mastershroom

 

Ran out of warranty months ago, and talking to Dell now would cost me $130.

This keeps happening regardless of whether the CMOS battery is in or out of the system.

 

3-1-2 Master DMA Registration Failure

I'm searching for more info now...

 

Hey, I bought Dell studio 1555 yestrday. Hope it'll last for long.

 

Poor Mastershroom... you get a 1555 to replace another faulty Dell and then it bites the bullet too! Best of luck, I'll do some digging as well.

Edit : Maybe I misread, but I don't think the error code is 3-1-2. OP said that there were 3 beeps. 1 long and 2 short. Not 3 beeps, 1 beep, 2 beeps.
1 Long and 2 short is the Inspiron code for a video card failure.

Edit 2 : I found this on the Dell Support site but it doesn't mention your code.

 

Have you tried removing/swapping out the RAM?

 

Did this happen because of the too much gameplay on laptop?
Does intense GPU stress can shorten the life of laptop?

 

Woe is me, right? I appreciate the help.

Yeah, the beep code was long short short, followed by 6 softer beeps of equal length. They haven't happened since yesterday. Thanks for the link, btw, though it only mentions the standard evenly spaced beeps, nothing about the long-short-short sequence before it. Turns out 6 in a row means video card failure...just what I needed.

Yes, I've tried a total of 4 sticks, 2 that I know work perfectly (pulled out of my mother's fully functional Latitude E6400), tried each one in each of the two slots, tried them all one at a time (in each slot), but no combination of sticks and slots seem to have made a difference, so either I suddenly have both RAM slots gone bad, or this isn't memory related.

If I knew what caused it, I wouldn't be posting a thread asking about it.

I don't think it's a heat issue; my temperatures have always been pretty safe, and I replaced the CPU and GPU thermal pads with Arctic Silver 5 a while ago, complete with a copper mod for the GPU.

Thanks for your help so far, all of you.

 

You don't think that maybe when you were doing that copper mod you wiggled something the wrong way...? I'm not calling your skill into question just mentioning a possibility. Maybe something just needs to be re-seated.

 

What about removing the video card temporarily and seeing if it boots?

If it's not the RAM or the Graphics, it's probably the mobo or processor iteself (bleh)

 

Everything was pretty firmly in there. Besides, its not like the GPU can come unseated, and the CPU socket locks the pins into place. And according to HWMonitor, temperatures are quite normal, on the cool side thanks to the copper modding and AS5.

I would, except it's impossible; the GPU is soldered to the motherboard and glued at the corners. It's not going anywhere, and if I did somehow get it off I doubt it would ever go back on.

I just got back from Micro Center, with a brand new Hitachi Travelstar 7,200 RPM 320GB SATA 2.5" hard drive, which I am about to install Windows on. If it works, then I've solved it. If not...well, at least I've narrowed it down a bit more.

 

So, I tried the new hard drive, and now it's back to no display and beeping. It was the loud long-short-short again, then 4 beeps, then 6, and it just kept repeating 6. I put the old hard drive back in, same thing. Removed the CMOS battery, changed all the memory sticks, but now it seems this won't stop happening. I'm afraid this thing is truly dead now.

 

I priced the motherboard for you and sadly it's up in the $300-$400 range. Ouch! If a warranty extension is cheaper, you may want to do that instead of hunting down the parts. Alternatively you may be able to find a non-working 1555 that someone is selling for cheap* and just cannibalize it.

*Edit: I sent this seller a request for the service tag so we can see what graphic card it has.

 

Update: Sadly looks like that eBay 1555 I linked is lacking in the graphic card department. Dell info below.

I hope you are able to find what you need at a decent price. I'll keep my eye open and let you know if I see anything useful.

 

Meh...I think I'm just going to scrap it, sell the CPU for what it's worth and buy a new laptop.

 

I'm sorry to hear that Mastershroom..

 

Damn laptops..feel it for you Mastershroom hope you next will more lasting and usable good luck bro.

 

Heh...I don't care if I have to settle for a $200 netbook, but I guarantee you I'm buying at least 3 years of warranty on my next laptop.

 

And chances are it won't have a Dell logo on the lid!

 

Yeah, I've been looking into ASUS, but what I really want is a bit rich for my blood. I think I may just get an Inspiron Mini netbook and max out the warranty.

 

After my first laptop (an IBM R40) had about 3 or 4 faulty motherboards in the 4+ years I had him, and they were all replaced within the 3 year warranty period, I made that same decision, usually the 3 years warranty isn't a costly upgrade anyway.

 

I've heard that Hp pavilion's are good.
But yes, buy a warranty