Hi everyone.
While I would very much like to emulate the incredible first post of acrobat, I'm afraid I'm starting from a much more limited knowledge base.
Hopefully I'll be able to flesh out the details further down the line.
The problem.
I've been given from a friend a Dell inspiron 2500. It's about 6/7 years old, and has been used without any great demands over that time with few if any problems.
She was in the middle of answering emails when the screen froze completely. Eventually giving up any possibility of regaining control, she turned off at the mains( always run on a mains adaptor). Turning back on, there was no response - no start up screen, completely dead.
Since then it has remained untouched, till she passed it over to me.
When I turned it on, the power and battery leds lit, the latter indicating that the battery was charging, which subsequently did charge up ok.
The fans start, run for a few seconds then stop.
I think I can hear the hdd start briefly, but no hdd (?)led comes on.
If there is a cd in the player, it will run.
I've taken the hdd out and checked it in another machine, and it's ok.
I've taken the ram out and checked that ditto, ok, then reseated it - no change.
I stripped the m/c, and checked the voltage of the cmos battery in situ with a dvm, and that reads 3.3volts.
I have now acquired her Dell disks, only CDS, and one is labelled Operating System Reinstallation cd, but may or may not be a "recovery" disk. I put that in the player, switched on, but no response other than the player running for a brief time before stopping. I repeated that with various F keys depressed at different times, but no change.
I've tried an old win98 recovery floppy in the fdd, and the drive clicks once but doesn't spin up.
I'm assuming the screen is ok, and have a monitor I could connect, but I don't know which key to press to switch screens. Is that necessary ?
I'm now left wondering if the internal psu has a problem, if the cpu has gone down the pan, or what else.
Any and all suggestions welcomed.
Regards
John
While I would very much like to emulate the incredible first post of acrobat, I'm afraid I'm starting from a much more limited knowledge base.
Hopefully I'll be able to flesh out the details further down the line.
The problem.
I've been given from a friend a Dell inspiron 2500. It's about 6/7 years old, and has been used without any great demands over that time with few if any problems.
She was in the middle of answering emails when the screen froze completely. Eventually giving up any possibility of regaining control, she turned off at the mains( always run on a mains adaptor). Turning back on, there was no response - no start up screen, completely dead.
Since then it has remained untouched, till she passed it over to me.
When I turned it on, the power and battery leds lit, the latter indicating that the battery was charging, which subsequently did charge up ok.
The fans start, run for a few seconds then stop.
I think I can hear the hdd start briefly, but no hdd (?)led comes on.
If there is a cd in the player, it will run.
I've taken the hdd out and checked it in another machine, and it's ok.
I've taken the ram out and checked that ditto, ok, then reseated it - no change.
I stripped the m/c, and checked the voltage of the cmos battery in situ with a dvm, and that reads 3.3volts.
I have now acquired her Dell disks, only CDS, and one is labelled Operating System Reinstallation cd, but may or may not be a "recovery" disk. I put that in the player, switched on, but no response other than the player running for a brief time before stopping. I repeated that with various F keys depressed at different times, but no change.
I've tried an old win98 recovery floppy in the fdd, and the drive clicks once but doesn't spin up.
I'm assuming the screen is ok, and have a monitor I could connect, but I don't know which key to press to switch screens. Is that necessary ?
I'm now left wondering if the internal psu has a problem, if the cpu has gone down the pan, or what else.
Any and all suggestions welcomed.
Regards
John