Anyone know if a bad Reserve (CMOS) Battery could prevent an Inspiron 4000 (3 years old) from booting?  The lights come on for a few seconds when the ON button is pressed but the computer either does not attempt to boot or shuts-down when the Dell boot screen appears.

The computer was being used and then left unattended for several minutes and apparently shutdown and now no longer boots.  Nothing I've tried will make it boot, such as booting from a ME start-up floppy, trying to boot from a good battery without AC connected, using a different AC adapter.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Joe