Inspiron 7537 Dead

Question

I just tried to turn on my Dell Inspiron 7537 Laptop which was put to sleep when I closed the lid yesterday. The laptop will no longer start and there is no screen activity.

The power light comes on and there is some disk activity when I press the on button to reboot but there is no screen activity and no beeps. I can't enter the BIOS, boot from my Reflect recovery drive and the Dell Diagnostics (Fn key + Power button) do nothing. I've removed the main battery, held the power on button for a minute and then reinserted the battery but that doesn't work.

I'm now stumped. Do I have defunct laptop or are there other things I can try? I note there is CMOS coin cell battery which is very hard to access. Is it worth replacing that?

Steve489 · Accepted Answer

I've now completely dissembled the laptop thanks to Dell's useful guide. I found the hinge fixing adjacent to the video cable was partly broken and placing strain on the cable. I fixed the hinge fixing with epoxy resin and cleaned and refitted the video cable. The hinges were also very tight so I loosened the friction nuts. All now works fine and all diagnostic tests are passed. In searching for a new laptop, I was advised to buy the workplace version of a laptop which are a similar price / spec to the consumer range but built to a higher standard with better warranty e.g. Dell Latitude / HP ProBook.

Mary G · Answer

Yes that is well worth the trouble to replace the cmos coin cell battery since that can cause it not to boot. It is a cheap fix if it works. Directions in the manual-- https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/bs/en/bsbsdt1/inspiron-15-7548-laptop/ins15_7548_sm-v1/procedure?guid=guid-df69c2bc-4ddc-4a42-9575-027945148eda&lang=en-us

Also remember that batteries wear out nowadays quicker than they use to. Test the battery after replacing the coin cell battery.

Steve489 · Answer

Thanks for your help. It seems my Dell Inspiron 7537 has a serious hardware fault and I'll need a new laptop. I changed the CMOS battery but the old one still showed 3V and was probably OK. I could boot the laptop with the main battery removed having left it overnight and entered the Dell diagnostics (F12). The diagnostics ran part way through then there was various screen flickering then just a black screen. I noticed the CPU heat sink was quite hot and this persisted with the PC in the hung state. The PC can be rebooted into the diagnostics screen (F12) once left a few hours to cool but soon crashes after a minute or so on retrying the diagnostics scan. I assume I have a serious motherboard problem which isn't worth fixing on a 5 year old PC. Are there any laptop brands significantly more reliable than Dell when shopping for new one?

Inspiron

Inspiron 7537 Dead

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