will not start up

Have a inspiron 1525 that was dropped. the DC inboard jack cracked. It ran ok for a while then stopped. Took it apart, replaced the jack, Now when I power up the power light comes on and will stay on, the harddrive light will stay on for 2-3 seconds then go off(I can here it turning very faintly), the fan will run for 3 seconds, I here the power supply, the dvd player will click twice, the battery light will stay on. I have no screen or functions. I'm reading about a lid sensor. Could I have messed it up on reassembly? If so where is it? thanks Jeff

 

Okay so it powers on but does not POST?

What I would recommend doing:

Test AC adapter with multimeter. Test with known good 90 watt Dell adapter.

Try displaying externally.

Remove battery and AC adapter and hold down the power button for 30 seconds.

Reseat RAM/HDD

Use known good RAM

Check if display cable was properly seated.

 

Hey Hey! I reset the ram. One of them had a small piece of plactic on it. I guessed it should be between the two ram modules for insulation. After reversing them it posted. Thanks for the quick reply and all the help. One more question. The heat sink was removed from the processor. It was stuck on with some hard stuff. I reset it tightly and it is drawing heat away from the processor. Should I scrape off the old stuff and reattach the heat sink? What would I use? thanks again

 

Normally the plastic is a sticker stating usually the RAM CAS latency, speed, that should not be causing your laptop not to POST.

Yes you should always reapply thermal paste if you remove your heatsink. You should clean it off with close to 100% anhydrous alcohol. I recommend AS5 or IC Diamond for repasting. Make sure you don't use too much as it will reduce the effectiveness of cooling.