Inspiron 1720 refuses to boot

[Digaly]

Hi

So I have an old inspiron 1720 that randomly broke a few years ago, and I just got around to looking at it again to see what's wrong. I wanted to see if it was easy to fix it so that I could have a dedicated machine, if not, it's going to the junkyard. So this isn't high-priority and understandably I don't want to spend a fortune on fixing it. I was hoping it'd be a cheap to resolve issue.

The issue
When the Inspiron 1720 is powered on, the fan starts spinning and the harddrive will make some noise as well. However, on the screen nothing is visible at any point. The laptop remains in the same state untill powered off.

What I've tried

• 
  ■Removing both memory cards and testing each one individually by putting one in the DIMM A slot and powering on the laptop. Result: No change
  ■Unplugging the battery and adapter and holding the power button for two minutes (to drain the CMOS battery, I presume)
  ■Shining a bright light on the screen to see if something does actually appear and it's just the backlight being broken. Nothing was visible.
  ■Removing the harddrive entirely, no change
  ■ Remove/replug CMOS battery, and at the same time:
  ■ Tested CMOS battery, got 2.5 something volts, nothing strange
  ■ Removed and unplugged the card reader (as to remove as much as possible to see if it might be the issue)
  ■ Connected an external monitor, absolutely no changes on the screen, just says no signal. I tried this with both the internal display plugged in and the internal display not plugged in

I was thinking of maybe getting a diagnostic card, but I'm very unsure about the type of connector and if it will help me. It's supposed to fit in a 200-pin SODIMM slot. However other suggestions are appreciated.

The laptop's kinda opened right now so it's ready if anything needs to happen to it.

 

[YDT]

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

 

[Hussain Ali]

Hi

So I have an old inspiron 1720 that randomly broke a few years ago, and I just got around to looking at it again to see what's wrong. I wanted to see if it was easy to fix it so that I could have a dedicated machine, if not, it's going to the junkyard. So this isn't high-priority and understandably I don't want to spend a fortune on fixing it. I was hoping it'd be a cheap to resolve issue.

The issue
When the Inspiron 1720 is powered on, the fan starts spinning and the harddrive will make some noise as well. However, on the screen nothing is visible at any point. The laptop remains in the same state untill powered off.

What I've tried

• 
  ■Removing both memory cards and testing each one individually by putting one in the DIMM A slot and powering on the laptop. Result: No change
  ■Unplugging the battery and adapter and holding the power button for two minutes (to drain the CMOS battery, I presume)
  ■Shining a bright light on the screen to see if something does actually appear and it's just the backlight being broken. Nothing was visible.
  ■Removing the harddrive entirely, no change

I was thinking of maybe getting a diagnostic card, but I'm very unsure about the type of connector and if it will help me. It's supposed to fit in a 200-pin SODIMM slot. However other suggestions are appreciated.

The laptop's kinda opened right now so it's ready if anything needs to happen to it.

It's probably your display because you should at least see something about the BIOS turning up. Try plugging a HDMI or some other related type of connection into your TV or a spare monitor and see if anything pops up.

 

[reedo_43]

Even if it is your display, I believe it needs to plugged in to test an external. Just a guess.

 

[Digaly]

I'm back with more updates, I have some more things I tried:

• 
  ■ Remove/replug CMOS battery, and at the same time:
  ■ Tested CMOS battery, got 3 volts, nothing strange
  ■ Removed and unplugged the card reader (as to remove as much as possible to see if it might be the issue)
  ■ Connected an external monitor, absolutely no changes on the screen, just says no signal. I tried this with both the internal display plugged in and the internal display not plugged in

I also noticed removing all RAM will cause the numlock to stay on, and the caps & scroll lock lights to flash. This is to indicate no memory is inserted. If I plug some RAM in, it will not flash or anything, indicating it's not any sort of problem the motherboard can tell me (as there are some other flash codes as well for the keyboard lights).

It does not power off after a while either, it just keeps running the fan and I can hear the HDD clicking a few times when it's turned on, then it shuts up.

Am I to suspect the motherboard basically died? If that would be the case, is it even then still possible for it to give me LED indications, power on the fan, make the HDD prepare the head etc.. ? That's the part I'm a little confused about.

If there are any other suggestions they are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your support so far!

 

[reedo_43]

It is strange! It should be 3 volts...cr2032 battery may fix your problem. Good luck!

 

[Digaly]

It is strange! It should be 3 volts...cr2032 battery may fix your problem. Good luck!

It's 3 volts, I checked again, my apologies.