D830 does not power up

Erik

So the basic troubleshooting steps for a system that no longer powers up is basically stripping it down the just the minimal components needed for the system to power up and see if it powers up.   Here is a link for a basic troubleshooting guild.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?docid=DSN_361764&isLegacy=true

Basic steps are as follows:

• 1. Check the Power button
• 2. Power button has color
• 3. Power button does not have color
• 4. Remove non-essential peripherals
• 5. Remove and Reseat Basic Hardware items

While troubleshooting be sure to unplug external devices

A piece of hardware may be interfering with the normal boot process of Windows.
Except for the monitor, keyboard and mouse, remove all external devices especially the following:

• Printers
• Scanners
• Media Card Readers
• Small Media cradles (iPod, PDA, MP3 player, etc.)
• Digital Cameras and Video Recorders
• USB storage devices
• Remove the computer from the docking station, if you are using one.
• Remove any CD's or DVD's in the optical drive.

If removing the external devices doest help and the computer still isn't showing any changes then it is time to remove and reseat basic hardware items. Remove and Reseat the items below in the order mentioned. Please be sure the computer is off and not connected to any power when removing these items. Along with these you could also disconnect wireless and modem cards, in some systems optical drives.

Laptop

• 1. AC Adapter
• 2. Battery
• 3. Memory
• 4. Hard Drive

The idea here is not so much just to reconnect these devices to make sure that they are connected correctly.  Like I said at the start of the post, tear down the system so that memory, drives, battery, ac adapter, modem and wireless cards have been disconnected.  Attach the AC adapter and try powering up the system, does it act differently?  Does it give error beeps, is the LEDs showing different patterns?  Then add a single memory stick and test again and note the difference.  Test all memory sticks with each socket and see if the system acts differently.  This way you can often find if the problem is caused by memory or by a memory socket.  If the system seems to start powering up now then add the hard drive and check to see if it boots.  Keep adding parts until the system is working correctly or you find the part that seems to be causing the problem.  If nothing helps then you are probably looking at needing to replace the system board.

I hope that this helps.

TB

Dear Terry,

Thank you for responding. I tried the steps you pointed me too before I disassembled the laptop entirely to look for any signs of damage.

I have a big suspicion that there is something amiss with the parts of the mainboard that supply power to its components (from the AC-adapter and the battery). This suspicion is based on the way in which the laptop failed and the fact that there is no life whatsoever when known-good power sources are connected and the power button is pressed (after connecting the keyboard, of course).

More concrete questions from my part:

• Is it possible that some corrosion (which I was mostly able to clean) to a very limited area of the mainboard (underneath the wwan-sticker) causes the laptop to not even power up (and/or never show a led lighting up)?
• Is there a way to specifically test the power supply parts of the laptop?
• Is there a guide specific for diagnosing mainboard problems?

Best,

Erik

Yes it is certainly possible that spilled liquid could cause any type of damage to the main board, if the system was on or turned on before the liquid was dried it could have shorted a number of circuits.  Even if the system was turned off there certainly could have been corrosion.

The AC adapter jack is connected directly to the system board on this model of notebook, so it is all integrated.  Unfortunately it doesn't matter if there was a problem with a memory socket or the ac adapter socket, the answer will be the same, to replace the system board. Beyond that I dont have means to test or diagnose specific issues with the system board.

TB

Hi,

I also have a d830 and since i am in Greece, my waranty is up, and there is no official techical support in the area, you are my only hope.

I have recently flashed succesfully my bios from the A04 to A15, and since then I ve experienced several frozen screens having to hard power of the computer. Today i ve decided to bring A04 back, but for my bad luck, before i even try it the screen froze again and i powered it off. Since then i am not able to boot it up, meaning that the laptop powers up but there is no display coming on, not even the bios boot.

I've tried everything in the suggested link

support.dell.com/.../document

This is crazy, I've never seen anything like that before...

Any help will do...

thanks in advance