e1505 won't boot, no post, 3 indicator lights + power blinking...Code for what?

Hey everyone, the other day I spilled about one teaspoon worth of water on my e1505, in the top-right corner around the [Backspace] key. The LCD screen turned completely white, I unplugged the laptop and pulled out the battery ASAP so that I could turn it upside down and try to drain any water out, but the spill was so small barely anything came out.

The laptop wouldn't boot. I took the keyboard out to see if I could swab-dry any water, but couldn't really find any in there. I lightly sprayed around with compressed air and left the laptop open with the keyboard out to try and let it dry out for a few hours, but no dice...still wouldn't boot. I thought maybe via cell phone logic, it might work again after 24 hours or so. It's been almost three days now and it still won't boot, so I'm pretty sure I fried something. Here's the error code it's giving me:

As soon as the laptop is given power (via AC or battery), all three indicator lights (Num Lock, Scroll Lock, Caps Lock) blink in unison with the Power light. The blink duration (the time they stay lit) is about 2 seconds. The laptop is totally unresponsive. I tried plugging my CRT monitor into the laptop but it doesn't make a difference...same deal, won't boot, lights flash...I also tried re-seating the RAM, swapping the sticks, only using one...it's not the RAM. So does anyone know what Dell's specific code is for all three indicator lights blinking in unison with the power light? I'm thinking it has to be either the power supply, the GPU or the motherboard...The LCD inverter is inside the screen, right? Since the water seeped in around the section where the network card sits, it wouldn't have touched the LCD screen, right?

Just trying to figure out what the problem is so that I'll know if it's worth fixing. I have a spare Inspiron 1501 that I've been using to harvest for parts, and so if the problem is related to a part that I can salvage from the 1501, it would probably be worth it, for example. I also have a spare GPU.

(What's ironic about this is that I've had this e1505 for about five years now, and I've spilled liquids on the keyboard at least 3 times, in much bigger amounts than this last time. Must have just hit the "right" spot this time.)

Any advice would really be appreciated.

 

That area near the upper right corner of the keyboard is where the AC connects to the laptop... very small amounts of water can fry your board up there. It is most likely that you will have to replace your motherboard.

If the motherboard on the 1501 is missing, you can't use a 1501 motherboard in an E1505 chassis, but could potentially use the screen and keyboard and so on from the E1505 and get the 1501 working (depending on what's missing in the first place).

Else an E1505 motherboard typically goes for around ~$100 on eBay.

 

The E1505 and Inspiron 1501 are directly compatible with eachother. The boards are identical. The area you spilled water on is the AC Adapter/NIC IC area, and the liquid corrosion has most likely shorted out the NIC and is holding down your PCI Bus. If you were an EE, I'd tell you to remove the IC and see if it posts. It's probably repairable, but requires some pretty complex repair skills. I'd just do what Commander Wolf says and replace the board. The 1501/1505 Boards are cheap, and the unit is extremely simple inside. A 0-Size phillips driver will get you into the entire thing no problem.

 

When that happened to mine (blinking lights, don't recall the sequence or number of lights), it was a bad charger that did it. Replacement under CompleteCare took care of that for me, but if you did indeed short/fry something inside, that sounds like an annoying fix.