It's not worth messing with a 10 year old laptop. You must have a dead battery which is too expensive ($100 or so) to replace on such an old computer. It could also be the motherboard. Windows XP is not supported any more so that would be another problem. Buy her a new computer.
I tend to agree with MaryG's advice. I actually still use an Inspiron 1000 at home for light duty work with Microsoft Office and web browsing with Firefox, and it is surprisingly fast and capable, but that's only because I have upgraded it over the years with a larger, faster hard drive, more memory (added a 1 GB chip), and Windows 7.
There could be several reasons why your Inspiron isn't powering on, including a bad battery (at least $80 to buy a "new" one, and many "new" batteries have just been sitting in a warehouse for years and no longer hold a full charge), a bad CMOS battery (the part is cheap, but replacing it requires taking apart the laptop to access the motherboard), to other, more complicated/expensive problems.
As I write this post, I see a new Dell Inspiron 15 selling for around $250 that would come with a full warranty, and it be much faster than the Inspiron 1000.
Bottom line, it might be worth spending $25 or an hour or so of tinkering to see if you can bring your Inspiron back to life, but you'd probably be better off sending it to the recycling center or seeing if you could get a few dollars for it as a parts machine on eBay. (Don't forget to remove or wipe the hard drive clean if you decide to sell it.)
Mary G
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20.1K Posts
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August 18th, 2014 09:00
It's not worth messing with a 10 year old laptop. You must have a dead battery which is too expensive ($100 or so) to replace on such an old computer. It could also be the motherboard. Windows XP is not supported any more so that would be another problem. Buy her a new computer.
josehill
5 Posts
0
September 30th, 2014 18:00
I tend to agree with MaryG's advice. I actually still use an Inspiron 1000 at home for light duty work with Microsoft Office and web browsing with Firefox, and it is surprisingly fast and capable, but that's only because I have upgraded it over the years with a larger, faster hard drive, more memory (added a 1 GB chip), and Windows 7.
There could be several reasons why your Inspiron isn't powering on, including a bad battery (at least $80 to buy a "new" one, and many "new" batteries have just been sitting in a warehouse for years and no longer hold a full charge), a bad CMOS battery (the part is cheap, but replacing it requires taking apart the laptop to access the motherboard), to other, more complicated/expensive problems.
As I write this post, I see a new Dell Inspiron 15 selling for around $250 that would come with a full warranty, and it be much faster than the Inspiron 1000.
Bottom line, it might be worth spending $25 or an hour or so of tinkering to see if you can bring your Inspiron back to life, but you'd probably be better off sending it to the recycling center or seeing if you could get a few dollars for it as a parts machine on eBay. (Don't forget to remove or wipe the hard drive clean if you decide to sell it.)