So I bought an old Dell laptop yesterday from a university surplus "parts" laptop box. It came with no HDD, no battery, and no RAM. I installed a RAM card (2 GB) and have tried four other cards, while still encountering the same issues described below.
Upon plugging it into several Dell chargers and pressing the power button the laptop shows the white "power" light (in the power button) but the screen remains dark. NONE of the status lights are on when the laptop is simply plugged in and turned on. The Caps Lock button sometimes flashes on for 1/5 th or so of a second immediately after pressing the power button. About 30 seconds after turning on, the fan kicks on a low speed to keep the processor (i5) cool. The laptop then sits, and its status doesn't change (no screen change, no diagnostic codes, etc.) until I press the power button to turn it off, where the fan kicks on high speed for 5 seconds, the "drive read/write" button flashes once for 1/5 th of a second, and it powers off.
When I hold D and turn the laptop on (run LCD test) the test proceeds perfectly, so I ruled out the LCD failure.
When I hold Fn and turn the laptop on (run ePSA: https://www.dell.com/support/articl...-diagnostics-epsa-or-psa-error-codes-?lang=en ) the laptop does not run the diagnostic test, but instead flashes the power button, which would indicate a RAM error ( http://jupiter.plymouth.edu/~tom/troubleshooting/E6430_device_status_LEDs.pdf ) although I've tested about four known good memory sticks in this machine with no change in results.
Any advice for this issue? I'm suspecting a mobo failure which would only be about a $50 fix out-of-pocket. Is there some other pre-boot test I can run with some key combo not described above?
Upon plugging it into several Dell chargers and pressing the power button the laptop shows the white "power" light (in the power button) but the screen remains dark. NONE of the status lights are on when the laptop is simply plugged in and turned on. The Caps Lock button sometimes flashes on for 1/5 th or so of a second immediately after pressing the power button. About 30 seconds after turning on, the fan kicks on a low speed to keep the processor (i5) cool. The laptop then sits, and its status doesn't change (no screen change, no diagnostic codes, etc.) until I press the power button to turn it off, where the fan kicks on high speed for 5 seconds, the "drive read/write" button flashes once for 1/5 th of a second, and it powers off.
When I hold D and turn the laptop on (run LCD test) the test proceeds perfectly, so I ruled out the LCD failure.
When I hold Fn and turn the laptop on (run ePSA: https://www.dell.com/support/articl...-diagnostics-epsa-or-psa-error-codes-?lang=en ) the laptop does not run the diagnostic test, but instead flashes the power button, which would indicate a RAM error ( http://jupiter.plymouth.edu/~tom/troubleshooting/E6430_device_status_LEDs.pdf ) although I've tested about four known good memory sticks in this machine with no change in results.
Any advice for this issue? I'm suspecting a mobo failure which would only be about a $50 fix out-of-pocket. Is there some other pre-boot test I can run with some key combo not described above?
