Hello,

I have an old broken Inspiron 5100 that I'm trying to repair. I'm guessing either the motherboard or the video card is blown.

Here's what happens when I try to boot:

1) LED lights on the front come on, battery light is blinking (low battery). Both the CPU fan and the HDD start to rotate.

2) There are a few noises from the hard disk at first, but after a few seconds, it reverts to simply the constant whine of it rotating. It stays in this state until I power it off.

Any ideas on what could be the problem? I tried plugging it into an external monitor and also swapping the CPU with one I know works to no avail. There are also no beeps when I turn it on, so I'm tending to believe this is an issue with the motherboard and not the video card.

Thanks in advance for you opinions!

Have a look here: Tutorial: No POST (Power On System Test)

Thanks a lot for your reply kimsland. Unfortunately the battery has now died as well, and the computer seems to be unable to either run off the power adapter or charge the battery. So I can't test many of those things.

The only thing I can try is taking it apart and giving it a good cleaning, but it sounds to me like something is seriously wrong with the motherboard, since it's not charging.

Thanks again for your advice

Well it also sounds like the dc jack is no longer settled, try resoldering it