Laptop dropped, won't power on.

So, after owning my precious Inspiron 8500 for years it finally happened, I dropped it, landed right on my foot, and now it won't turn on.  Now, I understand that nornally this means a busted mainboard and such, however, there are a few things that make me think that that is not the case.  For one, when I dropped it it was already on, and after giving it a quick look over I tried to run a program, I believe I turned on Firefox.  After determining that nothing was totally inopperable I decided to turn it off and go to sleep, as it was late at the time.  Well, I must have been tired, because when I tried to turn it off with the power button it didn't work, so I just used the Start menu instead.  Of course if I had been thinking it would have occurred to me that if the power button wasn't working to turn it off it wouldn't work to turn back on either.  So, I guess my question is this, if the mainboard had broken when I dropped it still have worked at all? Wouldn't have just frozen or something?  Further, is there some alternative way to try and turn on the laptop?  Something that would tell me that it was more than just the power?  Basically I'm trying to check alternative to a busted mainboard before I throw away money on a tech... any ideas?