laptop won't start up

...on with the novel...

DELL XPS M1710

the problem: i hit the power button and it starts to start up. a couple lights come on and it sounds like it's going to start, but then it just sits there. nothing. it shuts off.

...so now i'm trying to find out if i can save it...

i asked the ex-room mate to look at it and he said it's the mother board. and i need a new one.

another person i asked to look at it, thought something had maybe disconnected. so he opened it up and everything "looked" fine. so he closed it up. i told him that i was going to just post it up here, and he wanted me to ask about the lights. i don't think it means anything, but i don't see the harm in asking, so...
besides the "power" light staying on, the "keypad" light stays on. the "uppercase" and "scroll" lights blink together for about 20 seconds. then everything shuts off.
so for him, i ask, do the 2 blinking lights mean anything?

...the main problem/reason(?) leading up to this...

okay, first of all, the ex-girlfriend and i were going out of state. and she was trying to be nice. but she packed the laptop in my suitcase without me knowing. which was a nice thought, but... yeah. so here we are.

...the question...

can this thing be saved? is there any hope?

thanks for any help i can get with this.

 

sorry for the second post, but i do have a "bit" more info on the situation. or an update on it atleast... and i don't really consider myself "computer literate" so please bear with me...

DELL XPS M1710 running XP

everything inside has been "reseated" and placed back in. it's doing the same thing.
i've tried starting it up with both batteries and with just the cord. and it's the same situation.
tried some "BIOS" code(s) that were thrown my way. didn't seem to do anything. but i tried to start it up again anyway...
it must of "done something", because now... you hit the power button. it makes a quick/short beep then you hear (for lack of a better term) a "whirring" sound. (fan maybe?) the lights do the same thing they were doing before... then the "whirring" stops, then the lights go out. same situation. and still no activity on the monitor..
and there doesn't seem to be any response to my attempts at getting it to "safe mode" and starting that way. not that i can see when the logo pops up anyway. but i've still tried.
and there's no light on the disc tray, so i'm taking it that there's no activity there? it doesn't sound like it anyway. and just to do it, i've tried slipping the "drivers and utilities" disc into it, just to see what happens. still nothing.
i've also hooked an external monitor to it. re-tried the guessing at the "safe mode" attempts and pretty much everything else i've tried... still no response.

so yeah, laptop still doesn't work...

sarcasm and any/all suggestions would be appreciated... thanks again people.


and no disrespect to you guys, i know you've got a lot going on. but i did end up posting my issue on another board. which somebody did end up lending me a hand and couple suggestions...
(if you end up reading this, good looking out dai. wouldn't have got this far, this soon, without you.)

and if it'll help others out, i'll update this thread (and the other one) as i go...

oh, and don't forget, sarcasm can be helpful too. ha. atleast to me...
take care, and thanks again people...

 

By "BIOS codes thrown my way", presumably you got into BIOS & reset to factory settings and/or maximum settings?
Wording may be different, but that's probably what you did?

 

thanks for the interest ralph3124,

to be honest with you... i don't think anything i tried did much of anything. the only thing that changed is now there's one beep right after you press the power button (which wasn't there before)... so no, i didn't actually get "in to" anything. or i don't think so atleast. the monitor has no activity and neither does an external monitor. the laptop itself still shuts itself off just like it has been doing.



i would like to add as an update though,

the "whirring" sound, is not a fan. they don't turn on at all.
took out memory and tried to start it. nothing. put that back in, and tried the other one. and nothing. still did the same thing it has been doing. tried starting it without the hard drive, and got the same thing. and just to do it (because it worked once on my desktop) i tried to start it without the wireless card (or mini-card as dell called it). but got the samething again. taking the wifi card out didn't change anything either...

this thing is done isn't it?

 

When booting up, you should get a message similar to:
TO ENTER BIOS, HIT DELETE KEY
As soon as possible, hit that key. It should bring you to a menu, the first page will show you date, day time, floppy drives (if any) and hard drives/cd-roms, etc.
Keep paging through the different menu pages, you are looking for RESET FACTORY SETTINGS (or similiar to that). Try that. That should set your computer back to factory settings. You MAY have a wrong setting, which is throwing it off.