I have a 2 1/2 yr old Dell Inspiron 1000. The battery is kaput and has been for a long time. always run off a power cord. now the laptop will not boot up (?). there are small green LED lights...two on the front, 4 in the back. they do come on when i turn on the power switch...at least some of them. I heard the hard drive spinning and the fan coming on...just like it would boot up normally, but then nothing. everything stops....then screen never comes on and its sits there...with a couple LED lights on, but nothing. like its in stand-by. This happened to me a year ago and i found a forum somewhere where everyone was having the same problem. they took the computer apart, removed something, then put it all back together and it worked. i just can't remember where i saw it at or what forum. this seems to be a fairly common problem with the Dells. If anyone can help me out here, i'd appreciate it. i just bought a new laptop and the same day the Dell crapped out before i could transfer all my information to my new laptop.

Thanks in advance.

Brian
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Sounds like maybe the screen has gone out. Have you got a regular monitor that you could hook up to it to check this for sure?

Even thought the battery wont power the system it probably still has enough power to keep the system from reseting. Unplug the laptop and take the battery out for a few minutes (like pulling the plug on a desktop) then put the battery back in place and plug the laptop in.
Good luck

Hi.
I am not sure if this model inspiron is the same as mine (1300) in its hardware layout, but there is a known "feature" of some inspirons where the ribbon cable which connects the sreen to the motherboard can work loose or even fracture. Right below the hinge at either end above the keyboard surround, you should see two slots where (with the system powered off) you can GENTLY insert a flat screwdriver bade and GENTLY lift the connector cover off. A ribbon cable should be visible, and you can try to reseat it GENTLY in the socket. If you then replace the cover and power up, the screen should come on. If it doesn't, then you may have a screen backlight failure, which is not easily fixed .......

btjohnson911
first of all, check out if the notebook shows something on the external monitor.