Diagnosing Broken Laptop?

PaulM

PaulM

PaulM

Associate
Joined
18 Feb 2008
Posts
1,050
Hi all,

Last night I was just typing on my Dell Vostro 1500 and all of a sudden it cut out. Pushing the power button does nothing, it seems completely dead.

I've tried it with/without the battery, and used a different AC Adapter but nothing made a difference. I checked everything inside and it all looked okay.

Is there any way to diagnose exactly what's causing the problem... or would I just have to replace the motherboard and hope it works (in which case I'd just buy a new laptop). Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Hold the power button down with out the ac or battery in,
Then just connect the ac, try turning it on, if nothing and your 100% sure the ac is working its new board time, or if the socket is loose it might just need re soldering but i'd put money on it being the board. In which case bung it on ebay and you should get a reasonable amount for it, but take the HD out first.
 
Yup, that's affirmative. It's a dodgy GPU candidate. How far out of warranty is it? If less than a year out you might want to ring Dell.

I'd try the above first (though you might want to leave it off for a few minutes after pressing the power button, just to make sure).
 
Thanks for the replies, yeah the AC definitely works, I tried what was suggested but it still seems completely dead.

Yeah, it is a nVidia 8600M GT I did read Dell extended the warranties on a lot of the models due to the overheating GPUs but the Vostro 1500 isn't included in the extension. It was bought in April 2008 so it's ~16 months out of warranty.
 
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