How do I perform a 'hard reset' or 'system reset' of C600?

Question

I have a friend who bought a C600 on ebay.

I got the computer totally updated and running like a champ, but if you leave the computer off for 20 hours or so, it forgets what time it is in BIOS. Date/time has to be set on boot-up.

So the company that sold it to him agreed on the phone that it was probably the rechargable CMOS battery.

We replaced that very carefully with a new one and now the computer is almost totally dead. You get a green power indicator for a few seconds and then it goes out. Doesn't matter if you leave it plugged in to charge up for 24 hours, it is still dead.

A couple years ago, a Dell tech walked me through a similar situation to do a "hard reset" (on a C800?) to clear the motherboard of it's memory of installed devices. That fixed the otherwise dead laptop two years ago, but I don't remember how it was done.

Could someone please refresh my memory on how to "hard reset"?

Also, if that doesn't fix it, does anyone have any other ideas? You cannot even get to the BIOS - the screen never displays ANYTHING! No beeps, no fans, no nothing.

Thanks

rapco · Answer

For reseat the computer, Remove all power sources (Battery and AC), hold the power buttom for 20 segs for reseat the BIOS alt+f inside the BIOS. then save changes and exit.

unimun · Answer

You get a green power indicator for a few seconds and then it goes out. That is often a sign of chip creep.  Try reseating the memory and CPU.

kewidogg · Answer

Now I'm not fully sure on that laptop or whatnot, but I know on my desktop, there were jumper plugs I could move around that would totally reset the bios and everything. Check your manual for jumper settings...I could be totally off, maybe laptops dont have this but its worth checkin into.

JeffO-no · Answer

Thanks all for the replies.

My friend is punting (sending the laptop to college with his daughter with the problem).

Latitudes are totally different from desktops, so the motherboard jumper isn't hte ticket.

I believe the part I missed was the 20-second power up.

I think this is what the procedure was:
The Dell technician told me to take out the main battery, CDROM drive, hard drive, RAM, and any PCMCIA cards, then PLUG THE AC POWER IN and hold the power button in for over 20 seconds.
I said, "Whoa! Won't that blow it? On a desktop you're not supposed to turn on a power supply without a load on 5volt and 12 volt." He assured me that Latitudes were totally different. I seem to recall the blarring beeps you might expect from applying power under such a situation, but the tech said it was good. He was right. The manager's dead laptop functioned perfectly after putting everything back together.

I repeated all these steps except for the 20 second button hold-down. My feeble memory can't be certain if this is right.

Reseting the BIOS isn't the goal. That's easy. A "hard reset" clears more than just the BIOS. Apparently Latitudes, and maybe other laptops, have other Plug-n-Play circuitry that remembers what you plug into it so that the next time you boot up, the process is faster. On rare occasions, a Latitude stops being dynamic and has to be forced to forget what was once there and start from a clean slate.

Thanks all for trying to help. My friend's laptop is now beyond my help, at least until Christmas vacation.

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How do I perform a "hard reset" or "system reset" of C600?

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