Anyone good at fixing Dell Laptops?

[Billy Golightly]

This one died. Its about 3 years old, Inspiron E1705. It was working fine, shut it down and then went to start it back up and its like completely dead. Power button makes the power LED come on for like 2 seconds and then goes back off. Removed battery, tried with just AC power, unseated and reseated both the memory and the hard drive. Its of course, just out of warranty, and never had any problems before. Do the power supplies on these go bad like on Desktops? ANd are they replaceable?

[ProCarbine2k1]

Porn will kill any computer Billy :lol:. Your sounds a little bit different than mine, but not much. I actually had a hard drive motor go bad in one of my laptops. It would turn on for about 15 seconds and then NADA.

[Erics350x]

its hard to say without having it in front of me, but it might be time for a main board. Does the screen flash or light at all?

[mohadib]

the power supplies die often. and so do the batteries. i would try a known good PS with no battery in the machine. Sometimes the PS connector can go bad too. Plug it in and try jiggle it a bit while starting.

[300rman]

could be the PS, my old laptop ate them for dinner.....idk why.

could be a loose connector. doubt its a bad HDD cause it would go quite a bit farther, and it wouldnt automatically shut down. could be the mainboard.

if you want, you could take out the HDD, send me the computer if the Power supply and other simple checks dont pan out. i'll diagnose and fix it for you, for the cost of parts. and i source cheap parts off Ebay, unless you wanted new from dell parts. I dont mind helpin you out Billy, especially when fixing and selling computers is somewhat of a side job of mine lol.

[racerxxx]

If your just out of warranty, like a few weeks or so, I'd give Dell a call. When I got my laptop from them, they couldn't do enough to help me, I also called them a few times on some random issues with it and they're tech support was great. The only words of advice I can give you is kill them with kindness, praise their product and mabey they'll cover your back. Good luck.

Oh yeah, does the light flash say orange a few times then green. Dell uses the power on light as a trouble shooter. If so mabey you can google the color code or check dell site for it.

[hancadam]

Its most likely the board. They are horrible about going out on the Dells. I work for UBS, in tech support. We support 37k Dell Desktops and Laptops and system boards are the main part that goes out. I am certified with Dell, let me know if I can help.

Most of the time on any other brand PC's, power supplies and hard drives are the main parts that go bad.

[300rman]

Most of the time on any other brand PC's, power supplies and hard drives are the main parts that go bad.

just depends on the model....ive had models that eat mainboards, computers that eat HDD's, and some that eat P/S.

[Billy Golightly]

Well I say just went out of Warranty, end of May. So not just out, but not real long either. When the power up light comes on, its solid green for just like 3 seconds and goes off. Nothing else.

hancadam, is there a way to price a mainboard? Is it something an average chump like me can do? I've built half a dozen desktop computers but never messed with a lap top. I've been on the phone with dell tech support and it ended up they reffered me to the "out of warranty" dept. I haven't got with them yet but it sounds like it'll be just more or less mailing off to them and letting them bill me for the parts and repair. Probably end up being more than the laptop is worth and I just can't do that right now.

[hancadam]

I sent you a PM.

After reading some of the Dell tech forums it appears this model has a problem with video cards going bad. That would be an easier job for you and muh cheaper.

What video card do you have in it?

[Billy Golightly]

Its the laptop version of the nVidia 7800. I think its a 7800GS or something.

[Brockey]

Billy my laptop (compaq) was doing similar and I took out the ram I bought and before jumping on the laptop I tried to turn it on again with the factory ram in it and it worked perfect. Odd but the ram was fooling it up big time. Just something for you to try. Good luck.

[mohadib]

With the price of laptops now days, you might consider looking around for a new one if the fix is $200 or more. Sounds like getting your old data off will not be a problem for you.

[300rman]

I sent you a PM.

After reading some of the Dell tech forums it appears this model has a problem with video cards going bad. That would be an easier job for you and muh cheaper.

What video card do you have in it?

Never had a laptop that the video wasnt integrated with the mainboard.

Billy, look on Ebay for the mainboard you need. there are some reputable laptop recyclers on there. i recommend PC SUPER FREAK, ive gotten a few mainboards from them. had one bad one from them, they had no problem exchanging it either. if you can build desktops, you can fix the laptop. just pay attention to what screws go where.....the wrong ones can go in places, then you wind up with screws that are too short for other places.

[Billy Golightly]

This one does not have onboard video. It was a pretty expensive and high-end laptop at the time. It was also one of the very first to have the dual core processor in a laptop. I've found a couple places that sell mainboard but apparently there are different processor options from Dell (Not all came with Centrino Duo apparently) and none of them seem to specify what they are for.

[300rman]

This one does not have onboard video. It was a pretty expensive and high-end laptop at the time. It was also one of the very first to have the dual core processor in a laptop. I've found a couple places that sell mainboard but apparently there are different processor options from Dell (Not all came with Centrino Duo apparently) and none of them seem to specify what they are for.

they dont even specify what socket they are?? if they are all the same socket, then the CPU will work in any of them.

i had no idea they even made laptops with separate video cards. where the hell would you buy an upgrade? i would think the slot it fits in would be proprietary.

my laptop has a Nvidia 8600gt, 512MB graphics card, and its integrated lol. thats the only thing i hate about laptops, cant upgrade the video card lol.

[hancadam]

Mine also has an upgradable video card. But the laptop cost right at 3500 when new, but its getting a little old now.

Usually only "gaming" laptops have upgradable video cards.

[hancadam]

300rman is right Billy. They all should have the same socket. If they had different socket's they would most likely have different chip sets, and then would be totally different model I would think. But who knows.

[Billy Golightly]

So you think if it was a different socket it would have another model designation? That does make sense, but I figured they'd just have the mainboards serialized different or something instead of actually changing the full model #.

[hancadam]

I think your good as long as its for your model.