# Dell Inspiron e1705 won't boot.



## MargoKW (Nov 17, 2009)

Hello.

In an attempt to avoid Dell's out-of-warranty $50 charge for a diagnosis, I wanted to run my problem past you guys.

Last night I put my laptop on stand by and this morning it wouldn't turn on. Instead, when I pressed the power button, the power symbol on the right-side hinge and the Num Lock symbol light up while the Caps Lock and Scroll Lock symbols flashed on and off. The screen did not turn on, no fans turned on, nothing. Then the lights stopped flashing.

I have tried unplugging and running from the battery (which I know is charged) and taking out the battery and running only from A/C. I removed the hard drive and put it back in, same with the RAM.

Is it the motherboard? Is it shot to all hell? I'm pretty sure the motherboard is just dead and I didn't want to pay Dell $50 for them to tell me the same thing. 

Please help. I'm desperate.

Thank you.


----------



## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Try taking the battery out, but don't plug it in. Press and hold the power button for at least 30 seconds. Then put the battery back in, plug it in and give it a whirl. This discharges the capacitors, sometime will get a reluctant machine to start. You can try clearing the cmos, but that requires some disassembly. It isn't all that hard, Dell has a very good service manual for the model. The cmos battery is mounted to the underside of the palm rest and connects to a motherboard header with a short cable. 

Here's the link where you can get the manual.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins9400/en/index.htm 

Actually you don't have to take off the palm rest, just the hinge cover and keyboard.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins9400/en/sm/coinbatt.htm#wp1127284 
Been a while since I had my Inspiron 9400 (same model, but non-US) apart, I must be overdue for a cleaning. Too bad I just don't have the time, that coupled with inherent laziness eh.


----------



## MargoKW (Nov 17, 2009)

I followed your instructions for both suggestions but neither made a difference.

All I had to do was remove the coin-cell battery and put it back, right? There was nothing to really clean it seemed.

Let me know if you have any other tips I can try and thanks for responding.


----------



## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

The coin cell battery sort of under the keyboard needs to be out for varying lengths of time, sometime a few seconds will do it, others times it's a lot longer. I usually go with half to three quarters of an hour, works in most cases. With a desktop there are usually jumpers as well, that only takes ten seconds. Never looked to see if there were on the laptop board, but I'm thinking that there isn't. 

It's unfortunate that you can't do parts swapping like you can with a desktop. I'd try taking out the drives and one stick of ram, maybe even the wireless card. Get it down to minimum components just to see if it gets any sort of display on the screen, but I tend to agree that it's most likely the board.


----------

