Inspiron 9300 power on failure

Hi dbbianco,

I would like you to perform the following the steps again mentioned below and check if the system turns ON.

1. Switch off the computer.
2. Disconnect the AC adapter from the system.
3. Remove the battery from the computer.
4. Press and hold down the power button for 15 seconds.
5. Then connect back all the peripherals and check if you are able to turn on the system.

Also, I suggest you reseat a few components, like memory, hard drive, optical drive, wireless cards and see if that make a difference. You may refer to manual in the link below for removing and reseating of components.

http://bit.ly/1dWWBYD

Please let me know the findings.

Greetings Ravi, Thank you VERY much for responding,

I've done the test you recommended...

I've also reseated the:  Memory sims,  hard drive, and wireless modem.  Then because that was unsuccessful
I also tried reseating:

- the display connector
- the keyboard connector
- the keyboard connector, the round watch battery
- the keyboard, watch battery, display connector,  touchpad connector, all on the way to graphics processor unit (GPU)
  which was pretty dusty so I blew it off thoroughly and reseated it.
- blew the dust off of the motherboard and also got rid of the dust trapped between the fans and the cooling fins
  on both the GPU and the CPU cooling frames

And still, same result 3 seconds of  the 3 "lock" LED's, no fans, no disk access,  nothing to monitor, and shuts back off.    
As this "diagnostic" is different than other things that might happen, it must point to some specific component.  But I can't
find a "troubleshooting" guide that discusses anything this early in boot process of Dell systems anywhere.

I've searched the net pretty thoroughly about this failure and ran across only one thread which seemed to imply it might be
a failed GPU, which if this is the case, can be replaced relatively inexpensively.  But to go off and keep replacing
modules one at a time can become very expensive in a hurry, so isolation of the "3 lock LEDs for 3 seconds" code
can interpreted, this would be exceedingly useful.    or even a pointer to a guide which discusses power up diagnostic
codes.

Thanks in advance,
David

Hi dbbianco, 

The issue may be due to video card or the system board on the laptop. Please contact the Out of Warranty department 1-800-288-4410 (U.S.Customer only) for repairs.