Dell Inspiron wont power up

Hey guys.

My Inspiron E1705 is approaching its 2nd birthday and has suddenly died on me. Since January, when i had to send it in to dell to get the LCD replaced (bad wiring) it has intermittently been giving me the blue screen of death. Mostly when moved. recently it has been doing it more often.

Yesterday, following a BSoD, i rebooted it and it worked fine for a while, but began freezing. Each time i rebooted it would work for shorter and shorter periods before freezing again. Eventually it was freezing at startup, and then not even turning on at all.

After about 30 min it finally decided to power on. It then warned me that it had automatically shut off to prevent overheating, however it was barely warm and the CPU crit temp is about 250 F. Ive heard stories about E1705s fuctioning at temperatures so hot that the keyboard could burn your hands. So that cant be the real problem. Shortly after returning to life it froze and died on me again.

At this point its been a day and when i press the power button the light will go on for a few seconds and shut off. Every once in a while the hard drive will begin to start for about 2 seconds and then power off. Ive checked the battery, and removed and reseated the hard drive. neither of those have made any difference. Im a student so i really dont want to dish out the money to Dell to fix it. any ideas? Thanks, that computer is my life,

 

I work for my company's IT department and I call Dell a lot. Every time I call them with this type of issue they ask me to remove the battery and the power cord and hold down the power button for about a minute. And it has worked for me before but not every time.

According to Dell it discharges a capacitor that might be causing the issue.

Just thought I would throw that out there for a possible easy solution.

 

The cup temp is 250????????????????? Or do you mean the shutdown temp? If the latter, that is waaaaayyyyy too high. It would die before that temp.

 

nononono!! that's what the intel CPU "critical temperature" is quoted at, or so i read. i did not have a chance to run a diagnostic between when the problems started and when it died completely, but it was nowhere near the heats ive heard these things can reach. -the areas around the CPU and GPU were barely warm to the touch when mine failed, and indeed the whole day before then. Therefore i suspect that overheating is not the real problems behind this. Especially since it would have rebooted once it cooled down.

 

What heats do you think are acceptable?

 

from what ive heard heats up to 75 C during fairly heavy use are not a problem and i would estimate that i very rarely exceed that, and definitely not recently since ive stopped gaming

 

Inspiron 9400/E1705
The Inspiron E1705 and Inspiron 9400 (non-US models) are essentially the same machine - with a few minor differences in configuration. The Inspiron 9400 was basically a more up to date redesigned version of the Inspiron 9300 with a few extra added features such as the Dell MediaDirect button which was next to the powerbutton.

Available with either an Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo processor, this machine features a 17-inch WXGA+ (1440 x 900) or WUXGA (1920 x 1200) wide-screen LCD. Video card options also include an nVidia GeForce Go7900 GS (single heat pipe), ATI Radeon x1400 with 256mb of RAM or an Intel GMA 950. This model uses 533 MHz or 667 MHz of DDR2 memory. The E1705 tends to run hot on its underside which seems to make the card overheat and burnout within a year because of inadequate cooling. On most accounts of users who have experienced this problem, it occurred after the warranty expired therefore "alienating" the end user.
Note: For gaming and high-end graphics use, the GeForce Go7900 GS video card is highly recommended over the Radeon x1400. This is primarily due to faster data processing and fewer heat problems. Additionally, 7900GS can be easily overclocked to reach 3DMARK06 scores as high as in 5000 range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inspiron



Looks like Dell probably is aware of overheating problems.

 

ive been aware of this propensity too and would have attributed the failure to that except the first thing i did when it died was check how warm the bottom and back were, expecting the metal to be quite hot. But it wasnt it was barely warmer than room temperature. This is why im confused and asked if you guys could offer an explanation. Thanks for your help so far by the way.

 

i think im going to have to get that checked out though because despite its apparent coolness, that seems to be the only explanation ive been able to find. oh well. Thanks

 

Please let us know what you find out.

 

So a friend and i got together and opened up the computer. we replaced ram, tried to boot without the HD, and optical drive. we figured it wouldnt go to windows but it should at least stay on if they were the problem. no luck. nothing made a difference, though it rulled all those parts out.

So now im thinking that either the mobo, the CPU, or the power supply is to blame. I cant really think of another explanation. unfortunately i don't know how/ probably don't have the abilities and tools to test these theories out and am probably going to have to send it into dell and spend an arm and a leg. That is unless any of you have suggestions. Any ideas? Thanks for the help so far everyone. Also, the battery is good.

 

Unfortunately, I think it's going to have to go back for repairs. You might try a local repair shop.

 

Any updates?

 

i brought it to bestbuy where the geek squad guy did some tests for free (He was an EMT I work with) and told me he was pretty sure it was the motherboard. If I bring in a new one they can replace it for $60-$100. Being a High School Senior in all AP classes, a dozen clubs, and with college application deadlines looming, i haven't found time to find my exact motherboard specs, locate the exact model online and purchase it. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you guys. when I finally get it resolved I'll make sure to send in a final update.

 

Phoning Dell for info might be the fastest method....unless you get transferred to India