Dell Inspiron 2500 problems

I'm in desperate need of help here. I've done EVERYTHING I could think of and look up on the internet. I bought a refurbished Dell Inspiron 2500 and from day 1 it was shutting down on me on its own. A week and a half after I got it I was watching a DVD and it shut down and when I turned it back on it MESSED up bad. Cpu fried and so did the keyboard. So I replaced both. Also replaced the heatsink because it wasnt sitting right on my cpu. Took the entire thing apart and checked the voltage on my cmos battery, my fans, everything was alright there. Now...It only shuts down if its on battery. If I have the ac adapter in and the battery out I can be on it as long as I want. But if I put the battery in and take the ac out it immediately shuts down. Its also shocking me. I was holding it right underneath the dvd drive trying to show my boyfriend something and it shocked the crap out of me. And every once in a while I'm getting a fan(s) error during boot up and it wont finish booting. So, all I can gather here is I have a short somewhere, and the connection between my battery and my laptop arent right. But maybe I'm wrong? Like I said, I've tried everything! Every upgrade, download, tip and trick and I'm tired of trying to figure this out on my own. I need help!! I'll give the stats on this thing just in case it helps.

Dell Inspiron 2500
XP Home
40 G HD
Intel Motherboard 815EM chipset
Intel P3 CPU 800/256 Micro PGA2 w/coppermine
DVD
Floppy

I dont know what else I should put....or if that was even necessary. Anyways I REALLY hope someone has the answer to this because I dont know what else to do!

 

I've got an Inspiron 2500 as well. The battery doesn't work either when the A/C isn't plugged in, so I'm chalking it up to a dead battery.

thats about as far as I can help. sorry!

 

I dont think its the battery. My boyfriend has a Dell c600 that takes the same battery and they both work great on his laptop.

 

This thread is probably old, but I just read it. You do know that Dell had a recall on most (if not all) of their laptop batteries about 2 years ago? There was some sort of heat-related fire hazard.