Verify that the AC adapter LED is ON before you plug in the notebook end.  If it is not, replace the adapter. 

 

Try reseating the RAM.

If the adapter is OK, and reseating the RAM doesn't work, you have a mainboard on its way out.

 

Yes, the AC adapter's LED is ON. How do I reseat the RAM?

 

What are the possibilities of the mainboard "dying" if it's only 2 yrs old or less?

 

Thanks. 

Remove and replace the memory modules.  The odds are about one in four to one in five - 20-25% of all notebooks experience a major failure such as a mainboard issue within the first three years.

 

Hi, I shall be grateful if you could tell me how you solved the poblem as I also have the same. Was it the mainboard.

Thanks 

Hi, I am having a similar problem with my Inspiron 6400. It seems to get into a state where it will not reboot. When I press the power button, the keyboard lights, the power led and the disk led all come on. Very quickly the keyboard lights go off, then the disk light goes off and I am left with a black screen and the power led on. Pressing the power off button turns the power off immediately. This sequence may repeat 0 to 25 times but eventually, so far, the system finally reboots and acts normally.

 

One other symptom that I have noticed, and I know this will seem crazy, but often when I am frustrated with getting the unit to restart, I will finally decide to take the unit off of my lap and put it on the table next to me. It then successfully reboots. (I told you it would sound crazy!)

 

I have tried reseating the RAM once, I have tried rebooting after removing the batteries. There is nothing I can say that permanently fixes the problem.  I thought it might be a symptom of coming out of standby, because it seemed to happen often when I lifted the lid, so I changed to "shutdown when lid closed" so that it would try a fresh reboot when powered on. I still experience the difficulty booting. 

 

What was your solution? Are there any other things I could try?

 

 

I'd like to hear the solution/answer as well. My Inspiron m600 which is about 4 years old running XP started about six months ago or so exhibiting a similiarly weird powering off behavior. I press power, all the lights come on (including power led and harddrive led) but no image on the LCD and no sound of the hard drive or anything else engaging. Then after about a second or so, the lights all go off and nada. It will be like this for a while and then seemingly randomly will start working again. I've tried taking out the various peripherals, etc., even opend up the laptop case once to have a look inside (not that I would necessarily know what to look for).

 

I'd love to keep this laptop going for another year or so before giving up and buying a new one. Don't want to add to the e-waste problem too frequently if I can help it.

I also have the same problem, My laptop is one year old but still making problem. what do you meant by e-waste.

Update: my laptop is still having the same problem with the boot up. Some days, it doesn't work, other days it does. Oddly, sometimes all it takes is turning the laptop over and giving it a few pats. Sounds crude, but somehow this seems to make it work again. As if there might be a circuit somewhere shorting out and by giving a little bump, it re-seats the boards so they work properly again. Harddrive seems fine, LCD is fine, everything else runs OK for a while before the whole thing stops working again on a subsequent boot up attempt.

 

Also (possibly related?) I've noticed that I can sometime predict that a future boot up will not work because my ethernet connection seems to disappear. Could this be where the 'short' (if that is what is happening) is occuring?

 

(Also...by 'e-waste' I meant my laptop ending up in a landfill somewhere leeching its toxic components into someone's groundwater.)

I called the Dell Tech Support and they walked me through "unassembling" the keyboard and panel on the laptop and made sure that the connectors underneath it were tight and not loose. After that, it seemed to be alright without hitches. Hope this helps... ;)