old laptop not starting-help please
 

hi peeps

just got my old laptop out. dell inspiron/P4/XP. haven't used it for about 18mnths. its been stored in laptop case in the wardrobe - no damage/dust/damp etc.

plugged it into the mains to charge it up a bit first. got a green mains light and an orange battery charging light. after 1hr tried to boot it up and absolutely nothing happened - not a murmor of life.

after several attempts and achieving nothing i gave up. unplugged the mains lead and both mains and battery lights stayed on. tried booting up again and still nothing. only way to get rid of lights is to unplug the battery.

any one got any ideas as to what may be wrong?

cheers

colin

Sounds like the motherboard could be at fault, but really difficult to give you an accurate diagnosis without seeing it.
Personally I would try the following:
Remove the Battery
Remove the HDD
Remove the RAM
Leave for 5 mins then reseat them all... You probably will have 2 RAM chips so just try and reseat 1 of them. If it doesn't work after that try the other RAM chip. If it still doesn't work then I would say that its more than likely your motherboard.. in which case its probably cheaper to buy a new laptop.

Have you tried running it without the battery and just the mains power? Batteries are usually the first things to go in laptops.