Won't boot--3 beeps--but HD seems to be good

Question

Hi.  New to this forum so let me know if there's a better place.  We have an old Vostro 1500 workhorse my wife's had for six years--she's worn out 2 sets of mouse buttons!  Suddenly it won't boot.  In fact it doesn't even show any of the splash screens.     When the PS is plugged in the battery icon blinks about once every 2 seconds, which I gather is a low-voltage warning.     When I press the power button it has about 3 seconds of HD activity, 3 quiet beeps, and nothing more.  HD continues to spin but no read action.  This happens both with and w/o battery, and with two different Dell power supplies--both known good from a brand new Dell ultrabook.      But strangely, if you leave it unpowered with no battery overnight, on 3 occasions now it gives the 'Windows didn't shut down properly' screen and lets me boot to safe mode, which suggests the HD is at least reasonably intact.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to download everything.      The battery's definitely a problem but the local computer-battery guys say Dells work fine just on the PS without a battery.       Someone suggested the BIOS might be locked in a voltage-out-of-range protection (keeping it from booting) and suggested that if this was the case, removing the coin battery would allow that to reset.  So I did, and it didn't help.      I realize replacing the main battery would help troubleshooting by ruling out the batt as a cause, but since we're retiring it I hate to spend $80 or so on a dead duck.      Any suggestions/ideas greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

Dell-Kuldeep M · Answer

Hi sf44,

I would suggest you to drain the residual power from the laptop:

Disconnect any external peripherals (flash drives, printers, external hard drives) from the computer.
Remove the adapter and then the battery.
Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds.

Reconnect only the adapter and try booting the system to see if it boots normally.

Please run the diagnostics. The steps are:

Press and the power button to initiate diagnostics.

Or

Shut down and restart the computer.
Press the F12 key immediately when the Dell logo appears. The Boot Device list appears.
Select Diagnostics and press the Enter key.

Keep me posted with the results. I will be glad to assist you further.

sf44 · Answer

Thanks very much.  Didn't know about pressing +Power to call diagnostics.  Will try it and let ya know how it worked as soon as I can get the HD back in it--had to transfer the files to new Dell Ultrabook.  (Sweet machine, and if they can get rid of W-8 it looks like it'll be a screamer!)

sf44 · Answer

Okay, pressing +power button gave a thorough diagnostic routine. Except for not having a battery installed, everything passed--HD works perfectly.

On exit from this, got the "Windoze didn't shut down normally last time" screen, so I tried "Start Windoze normally."

Got the "Windows" splash screen, as usual, but after about 8 seconds the display froze and locked.

And interestingly, after that I couldn't get the machine to do anything at all, even using the above trick. Same result after leaving it unplugged overnight. The intermittent nature of the problem is puzzling.

Now same symptoms as before: 2 seconds of HD, then 3 or 4 soft beeps and that's it.

Dell-Kuldeep M · Answer

Hi sf44,

You may try reseating the memory modules.

Please refer to the system manual and read the safety information that shipped with your computer.

The link is: http://bit.ly/1b4aIgT.

Also, if you have two memory modules, you may try connecting them one by one to see if the system works with one memory module.

Also let me know if you are always able to boot the system in safe mode.

Keep me posted with the results.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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