Dell Inspiron 1150 - Assorted issues, but starting at beginning

Question

I have an 1150 with no operating system (trying to add win xp to a cleanly formatted 60 gig harddrive).  The screen has been removed awaiting arrival of a replacement.  The video connection cable has also been removed from the video adapter on the motherboard.  I am using an external display to see what the system is doing.  Here is my situation:   Upon ac or dc power-up (makes no difference which one), the power light turns green.  The cd rw/dvd flashes for about 60 seconds... the flashing is at regular intervals (not randomly like it is reading a CD).  The fan motor activates, and the display (once I activate it with FN+F8) will do one of two things...    1.  If I have made any memory DIMM changes, it will sense the change and direct me to F2 Bios setup.  (see 2 below to find out what happens if I go F2.)    OR   2.  If there have been no memory DIMM changes since the last power up, it will tell me there is no bootable device and give me a F1 Reboot or F2 Setup option.  (Hitting F1 at this point will only repeat the fact there is no bootable device...alternately, hitting F2 takes me to the Bios Setup.  This looked  promising when it first happened, but then upon leaving the bios setup by saving it only returns me to the first screen stating 'no bootable device...etc., etc., etc.,  ad infinitum.  and It will continue to loop again.   In the bios setup, everything id's correctly--The correct HDD size, devices, memory (even any changes made), etc.  I have 'activated' all boot devices with the corresponding arrow and even adjusted the order to make sure nothing is missed.  Nothing seems to work to get past the initial start procedure.  I know the HDD is good, and the CD RW is also.  The keyboard works fine.  I have opened the computer to not only remove the video cable, but also to clean the fan, heat sink, and reapply the thermal grease between the CPU and heatsink.  I used compressed air and a q-tip.  I also reseated the fan power wire and the keyboard connector.  The CPU appears to be functioning fine as the bios setup works well and is interactive.  Once powered up, the CPU stays powered up and does not shut down by itself -- alleviating an overheating concern.    So here I am... at a total loss for options.  I can't get past the setup and get a device to be recognized for booting.  I have tried adding memory (to 2mb) and various combinations from 256K upward.  I have tried various memory (2100 and 2700) -- all memory appears to be recognized regardless of the combination.  I have swapped hard drives between one with an operating system and one without...still no change... the HDD isn't being accessed even when activated.    Any of you folks ever run into this one???  Could the absence of the LCD screen be causing the problem?  Somehow, I don't think that LCD missing causes this problem.    There has to be an easy answer...  thanks in advance for your shared knowledge!   Frustrated in San Antonio...

notladstyle · Answer

did you set the cd drive to be the first boot device? are you sure you are using a bootable windows xp install CD? I had a backup copy of my xp pro that would not boot and I had to dig up the original to get it to boot.

merhaba_98 · Answer

First of all...thank you for responding.  As an update...  I have received a set of Inspiron 1150 system reinstall disks from Dell today.  Included is an XPHome SP2 disk which should be bootable, I think.  I put the disk in the CD-RW and turned the system on.  I had it connected with the AC Adapter and a fully charged battery was also present in the system.  I still have no LCD screen as the new one has not arrived yet.  Upon powering up the system, the green power light lit, along with a green battery lite.  No flashing...just steadily lit.  The fan powered up.  There was a brief flash of green from the HDD led between the power and battery led on the palmrest.  The CD-RW led once again started to flash at regular intervals for about a minute--it appears it was powering up, but not reading the disk inside at that point.  For a moment, the disk appeared to read and it looked like windows XP might try to install itself.  For a couple minutes the process appeared to go smoothly until it got to a point where the initial DLL files were loading.  The system apparently stopped and asked me to insert the Windows XP disk in drive 'A'.  (I don't have a floppy or a drive 'A')  When I did not respond, the system aborted and I tried to start over...no luck.  The display (remember, I am using an external monitor to do this without the LCD screen) just kept repeating the dreaded 'no boot device -- Press F1 to reboot or F2 for Setup'    I tried every variation I could think of but including a hard reset with no battery or AC, just leaving the system alone and unpowered for a couple of hours, etc.  I tried just the battery, adding memory, deleting memory, reseating the CD-RW drive, reseating the HDD, etc.  Yikes...I have never had this much trouble with a laptop!    On my last attempt (I am writing this on my Toshiba Laptop as I am watching my CRT monitor connected to my 1150) to boot the 1150, I accidently hit F12 during the startup.  I got a display asking what device I wanted to try to boot from (thought it might be a message from God so dropped to my knees immediately!).  I selected the CD Drive...  no luck.  Rebooted again.  Selected the HDD knowing there is no good operating system on it but if the Almighty was talking, I was listening!   No luck with the HDD.  Then I noted the dianostics option on the last boot using F12.  Lo' and behold, something worked!  Some diagnostic program loaded, the touchpad worked and I decided to do a full system check.  It is running as I am writing.  So far, there are no problem other than the program can't find the LCD screen...I would be really impressed if it told me it was in the trash out by the garage...    So here I sit... again.  I expect the diagnostics to tell me there is no problem aside from the LCD screen.  Which is giving me this idea...   Over last weekend, I tried to reformat the HDD which came with the system.  I am pretty sure I deleted all the partitions including the hidden ones, but then again, maybe not.  Obviously I missed the one that had the diagnostic program.  I am wondering if the recovery partition is still there, or might be recovered somehow in case I formated it.  Either way, I am convinced the motherboard is okay as each test is coming back with flying colors.  Surely one of you tekkies out there have been at this stage before with one of your laptops...any suggestions...  if so, I think I am on pretty good terms at the moment with the Almighty and might be able to put in a few good words for you.  Either that or April fools day is a little late this year...  Cheers and thanks in advance for any help...

tfezatte · Answer

Don't get to excited there sparky. The diagnostics is built into the BIOS, not on the HD. Since training to repair dot matrix printers that would pass a self diagnostics test after being dropped 10 feet and literally smashed to pieces, I don't trust self-diagnostics. Your laptop seems to consistently be inconsistent which would lean towards either a toasted motherboard or CPU. I'll bet on motherboard. Hopefully it isn't either.   For grins though, if you do a search on wikipedia.com for Inspiron 5160 and page down to the subject of 'overheating' you'll find a wealth of information. Should you manage to do a Lazarus on the 1150 you'll definetly want the fan control utility mentioned there to help with the overheating problem.   Good luck,   Tom

merhaba_98 · Answer

Hi folks... after many, many hours of trial and error, three hard drives, two cd rws and frustration beyond belief, I am writing this to you on the 1150.  Apparently, the gentleman who sold me the laptop had three operating systems on the HDD that came with it.  There were several partitions, including the 2 dell hidden partitions. When the system tried to boot, it found a corrupt operating system... perhaps Linux... and  would not recognize it.  When I tried to use the Dell restore utility, it also quit since the OSs were corrupted. No resort...had to put in a new HDD.  I have several from other laptops so that wasn't a cost factor.  I still couldn't get the CD RW to boot the recovery disk, thanks to Dell's offer for a free copy since  I am the now owner.   On a whim, I swapped out the CD RW with another I have, and  it booted, and installed the brand new WinXP Home SP2 edition. Needless to say, I was overjoyed.  I had sound from the sound card, and everything seemed to be working well... then a glich. No sound card recognized...although the card is showing up in the BIOS.  Then the memory started acting up... I had a 1GB Hynix 2700 333mhz SO-DIMM and another off-brand 256MB in the adapters.  (Hynix memory users  take note...)  Reseated them, reversed them, and finally removed the Hynix 1GB SO-DIMM.  I add the mate to the 256MB (512MB total), and  everything calmed down.  Tonight, I tried the USB and found that my 1GB  thumbdrive would not work... and still no sound device in Windows...    However, I am heartened...  no system shutdowns due to heat, the battery holds 2+ hours charge, and  recharges, and I have received and installed the new LCD screen... works perfectly.  More in the coming days as this saga continues.... it might still be the motherboard, but I am thinking there are more simple but mystifying answers.... Cheers!!!   Randy

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Dell Inspiron 1150 - Assorted issues, but starting at beginning

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