LATITUDE D 630 CPU.

The processor in this system is socketed and upgradeable to  a faster core 2 Duo (but NOT the newer Core i3/i5/i7).

If you buy a used unit of this model, be sure you get the Intel video version - stay well away from the one with the unreliable nVidia Quadro video chip.

Thank you for the info,  I have since bought two Dell D-630's , Both have the Nvidia 135m Graphics and work great as long as you regularly blow out any dust in the heat sink. 

I have one  D-630C  that I sent to my wife in Peru, However upon recieving it, it would not start up.

She plugged in the 90w power supply overnite and tried to start it up this morning and nothing.   She told me it had three green power lights come on then they shut off. Meanwhile the laptop did not bootup.

They use 220v power in Peru  and I understand that  the powersupply should convert from 220 or 110 to the needed voltage to machine requirements.  Any Ideas. 

This D-630C worked just fine  here in the states before i shipped it to Peru with a friend.  Both on and off of a docking station.  I replaced the 9 cell batter with a brand new one , upgraded the memory to  4gb and changed out the hard drive to a  500gb Western Digital Scorpio Black  7200rpm.  All this worked fine prior to shipping.  My friend carried the laptop bag in her suitcase to Peru , so I would think that it was well protected during travel.

This is very frustrating, as this was my Wifes Valentines Present and now its not working for some reason.

My D-630 here is Identical to that of my wife and i have had absoulutely no issues with it.  the only differences are mine is Pentium 4/2.0ghz T7300  and Hers is a Centrino @.4 ghz  T8300

I would remove the hard drive and optical drive. Remove and reseat both memory modules. One is under the keyboard. See does it power on with no hard drive and optical drive.

If that does not work then  all you can do is disconnect and remove everything else. Such as the wireless card etc. See does it power on.

Quite likely the nVidia GPU has failed. Normally this manifests itself as coloured lines or multiple images on an otherwise good internal display. But sometimes it just prevents boot. There is no fix for this other than to replace the motherboard. No amount of blowing dust out of the heatsink will cure or prevvent this. There is a fundamental flaw with the nVidia chiips in these that mean thay all fail eventually. Blowing the dust out postpones the inevitable, at best.

If your wifes D630 is less than 12 months out of warranty the there is a specific extended warranty for nVidia failure alone.

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/Direct2Dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

The D630 shipped with either an Intel GPU or the nVidia GPU. If you replace the motherboard then replace it with the Intel version. It is interchangeable with the exception of the heatsink. You will need a new heatsink and thermal pads. And obviously you will need to change the Windows video driver.

The good news is that if this was my computer then I would pay the money and repair it. In some respects they are faster than some of the current models. Especially with 4GB and a WD Scorpio black.

Thanks again for the advice , This morning i talked to a dell tech about this also and he said the same thing.  The screen is just black so far.  I am going to contact dell support in peru and have them look at it.   I have  2 years of gold client warranty on it.  In the meantime we will do the above and see if that works.  I was told that travel sometimes loosens the memory or hard drive.  So we will see.  Your correct upon installing the WD Scorpio Black and the 4 gb of memory and Win 7 Pro, It is a super fast machine.