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Studio 15 Won't Power On Sometimes
A few days ago starting having intermittent problem / symptom with 16 month old laptop no longer under warranty.
Pressing the On / Off button to Wake-Up or Turn-On the laptop fails to start it. The buttom lights up for an instant and the screen flickers twice, then nothing. Pressing the button again might yield a screen flicker, but nothing els. One, the AC power light on the laptop itself flashed amber and white for a few seconds.
After we wait for several hours, pressing the On / Off button works just fine and starts the laptop.
Once powered on, the 'Windows shut down unexpectedly' screen usually pops up and one time Dell Diagnostics started.
Unplugging the battery or the AC adapter doesn't work at all. I have not reseated memory or HD yet. Sure seems odd though that starting up again is a function of time.
Most responses to these power issues tell owners to replace the mother board - really, that's it! These laptops are that bad that the MB's fail in a little over a year! If it is the MB, I'll do it myself, but gee. I own other Dell products - no complaints.
What about the power button - can it be bad? Any advice is appreciated.
DELL-Royan S
3.8K Posts
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October 8th, 2011 02:00
Hi Webre123,
Welcome to the Community. I suggest you try and run a diagnostics on your computer when it turns on. Press the F12 key at the Dell logo on startup, select Diagnostics, and run an extended diagnostics on your computer. Post back with any error codes.
Thank you
Royan
webre123
17 Posts
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October 8th, 2011 12:00
Thanks for response.
Diagnostics all good. I reseated memory and HD, laptop works perfectly when it powers on.
Yesterday swapped new AC adapter and had no power failures for about 10 cycles of Sleep / Start. Put the laptop to sleep last night, this morning it failed to power up - same symptoms. At one point the light on the laptop itself, at the external power plug, did flash amber / white, but that stopped when I pressed the On Button to no avail.
Eventually, after a few hours, I pressed the On Button again and it worked. Laptop's running right now, I'm backing up a few new files.
Is there any chance it's the board battery? It's a Mitsubishi CR 2032 disk type. Or could it be the button itself.
By the way, closing the lid puts the laptop to sleep, and opening the lid powers it up. So now I'm testing to see how many times that works. Normally I use the Fn+Esc keys to sleep.
webre123
17 Posts
0
October 9th, 2011 05:00
Opening and closing the lid / screen worked several times, but this morning same thing occurred when opening the lid. Screen flickered, power button light goes off, nothing.
Pretty tough to troubleshoot. Thinking about buying new warranty and letting Dell service.
DELL-Royan S
3.8K Posts
0
October 12th, 2011 07:00
Hi,
I suggest you to update your Bios and your video drivers, from support.dell.com.
Thank you
Royan
webre123
17 Posts
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October 13th, 2011 05:00
There is a BIOS update, which I'll try, but the video driver is for Windows Vista 32 bit, not the 64 bit version, which is what I'm running.
webre123
17 Posts
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October 14th, 2011 03:00
The BIOS update didn't fix the problem. Does the version of video driver - 32bit vs. 64bit - matter?
webre123
17 Posts
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October 22nd, 2011 07:00
Renewed warranty and Dell replaced the Mother Board.
just_phil
4 Posts
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December 9th, 2011 17:00
Hi, I'm glad your problem is solved. I think I'm having the same issue, but not sure. Could you please check my post to see if you too think it's the same issue? Thank you!!!
en.community.dell.com/.../20008699.aspx
webre123
17 Posts
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December 13th, 2011 02:00
j_p,
I read your post. Doesn't sound like same issue I had.
just_phil
4 Posts
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December 13th, 2011 04:00
ok, thank you!