Question Dell Studio 1558 no boot

[Roby68]

Hello,

I have a Dell Studio 1558, which has recently stopped working with a black screen. The symptoms are as follows:

Pressing the power button, the power light comes on and stays on, and I can hear the optical drive working, and HDD spinning. Nothing appears on screen, the backlight does not come on and I can see nothing. I cannot see the splash screen on boot, and the BIOS will not appear if I press F2. Booting with a VGA external monitor attached only displays 'out of range' on the monitor. Booting with a HDMI external monitor displays nothing.

Also if I press F12 nothing happen.

The machine powers off immediately if I press the power button again. It is not booting the operating system (I can see it is not connecting to any network).

Using the built in screen test (BIST) works fine - I can see all 5 colours in the test, so the LCD panel is working OK.

I have tried replacing the RAM, removing all peripherals (e.g. wireless card, HDD etc.)

Plese, can someone help me ?

Regards, Robert A.

 

[mrmike16]

It's impressive that the power button is still working on that machine. It had problems from being on the hinge on most of the Studio 1558s.

Anyway, there is a good chance the motherboard gave out as the laptop is about 11 years old already. But just to be sure, try resetting the CMOS coin battery with the laptop unplugged and the main battery removed (wait a few minutes before putting the coin battery back in).

Other things that are unlikely but you can try them: Test it with swapped out parts. The easiest one to find would be a power adapter, as most of the Dell and HP ones of those days were similar.

Also, see if it beeps or behaves differently when starting it with no RAM.

 

[Roby68]

Hi, yes without RAM beeps twice.
Tried with another DELL power supply, nothing changed.
Do I need CMOS flat battery for boot ?

 

[mrmike16]

Hi, yes without RAM beeps twice.
Tried with another DELL power supply, nothing changed.
Do I need CMOS flat battery for boot ?

No, it should be able to boot without it. The motherboard just won't remember any BIOS settings or the time as soon as it loses power.
The computer beeping shows signs of life. You might need to try using different RAM sticks.

 

[Roby68]

I’ll try and let you know. Thank you for your advices.

 

[Roby68]

Hello. I have tried with few different DIMM3 RAM module. Same ending.
I just don't want to throw it away, SSD, RAM are new and LCD seems to be OK (D+ON/OFF passed), I'm thinking maybe to replace the MB. I hope it worth trying and hope may solve the problem ?!

 

[hang-the-9]

Hello. I have tried with few different DIMM3 RAM module. Same ending.
I just don't want to throw it away, SSD, RAM are new and LCD seems to be OK (D+ON/OFF passed), I'm thinking maybe to replace the MB. I hope it worth trying and hope may solve the problem ?!

If it's worth buying a new motherboard, all depends on how much you pay for it vs just replacing the system. A faster newer used one is maybe $100-150 depending on the day you look, something with a 3rd or 4th gen i5 CPU. You can swap the SSD into that instead of putting more money into an older system.

 

[mrmike16]

Hello. I have tried with few different DIMM3 RAM module. Same ending.
I just don't want to throw it away, SSD, RAM are new and LCD seems to be OK (D+ON/OFF passed), I'm thinking maybe to replace the MB. I hope it worth trying and hope may solve the problem ?!

Depends how much the motherboard costs. The SSD can be used in a new laptop as well, so only the RAM would go to waste.

Maybe try a different compatible power adapter.

For some reason, this message didn't post yesterday. Sorry for the delay.

 

[zohs_alexan]

Hello my friend,
Your laptop 99% possible works fine and it just has a problem with GPU. In order to fix the problem you need to unscrew everything from your laptop and have motherboard on your own hands. You are going to remove everything possible (RAM,Hard Drive,CMOS Battery, e.tc.) + you are going to have to use cotton with some alcohol in order to clean both CPU and GPU from thermal paste. You need to do a reflow to your GPU. So, you are going to have to heat your GPU chip at 300~350oC for about 15~25 seconds around the chip and 10~15 seconds straight at the chip. You will have to wait 5~12 minutes in order to give your chip time to cool down. Then, you are going to put your components like before and install new thermal paste to CPU and GPU. Probably when you are going to hit the power button you are going to see image on your screen.
Hope you find it helpful!
P.S. This is not a permanent solution. Reflow is going to last maybe weeks, months or even some years. Otherwise, you can replace the GPU's chip something definitely not recommend for because it might be expensive + you need a special machine so...