Solved! Laptop shuts off in about 3 seconds of turning on

[raheeljessa]

I've got an old Dell inspiron 17 inch i think its a 9300. Its from 2005/6 and I've used it through my uni days.
Pulled it out of storage recently and cleaned it up and charged it and tried turning it on. It turns on for about 3 seconds and then just switches off as though its lost power (even the hard drive beeps).
I checked the battery which seems fine.
Charger seems fine and I tried a newer more powerful charger as well to no avail.
Checked all the RAM as well and even the IDE HDD. I even disconnected the wifi and modem cards just to isolate the problems as much as possible.
Even tried booting with a USB.

It still doesnt boot. What could be the problem?

Looks like this (when new)

 

[webworkings]

Considering the age of the device, and the fact that you had it stored for quite a while, the battery likely needs to be replaced. Even if they show not physical issue, they do die after a while, and that is a long while since purchased.

I would start there.

 

[raheeljessa]

Considering the age of the device, and the fact that you had it stored for quite a while, the battery likely needs to be replaced. Even if they show not physical issue, they do die after a while, and that is a long while since purchased.

I would start there.

Luckily I managed to find a replacement battery today from an old new stock dealer.
Unfortunately to no avail.
Looks like I'll be repurposing these batteries if he doesn't do refunds.

 

[webworkings]

You say it beeps. Then before giving up/in, try the following...

There are a lot of reasons for a device to beep. Here are some of the common ones.

Beeps at start up...

8 Beeps on startup means the LCD on system has failed (or is failing). 6 on startup would mean it is your GPU.

You might want to try running a LCD Test, as well as a Pre-boot System Assessment.

So now you are probably thinking "How to run these tests?"

First, turn off your laptop.

For the LCD Test...

Hold down the 'D' key and then turn on your laptop
Keep holding down 'D' and you should see color bars on your LCD.

Again, turn off the laptop...

For the Pre-boot System Assessment...

Hit the 'F12' key immediately after turning on your system.
From the options displayed, choose "Diagnostics" .

This will tell you if there are any errors that you need to address/fix.


Other beep codes....

NOTE: Due to the fact that different manufacturers with this BIOS have different codes, the beep codes may vary.

Below are the AMI BIOS Beep codes that can occur.

1 short - DRAM refresh failure
2 short - Parity circuit failure
3 short - Base 64K RAM failure
4 short - System timer failure
5 short - Process failure
6 short - Keyboard controller Gate A20 error
7 short - Virtual mode exception error
8 short - Display memory Read/Write test failure
9 short - ROM BIOS checksum failure
10 short - CMOS shutdown Read/Write error
11 short - Cache Memory error
1 long, 3 short - Conventional/Extended memory failure
1 long, 8 short - Display/Retrace test failed
two-tone siren - Low CPU Fan speed, Voltage Level issue

Below are Award BIOS Beep codes that can occur.

1 long, 2 short - Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information.

1 long, 3 short - Video card not detected (reseat video card) or bad video card

Beeps repeating endlessly - RAM problem.

Repeated high frequency beeps while PC is running - Overheating processor (CPU).

Repeated beeps alternating high & low frequency - Issue with the processor (CPU), possibly damaged.

Dell beep codes

1 beep - BIOS ROM corruption or failure
2 beeps - Memory (RAM) not detected
3 beeps - Motherboard failure
4 beeps - Memory (RAM) failure
5 beeps - CMOS Battery failure
6 beeps - Video card failure
7 beeps - Bad processor (CPU)

 

[raheeljessa]

Doesn't boot long enough to do any of that

You say it beeps. Then before giving up/in, try the following...

There are a lot of reasons for a device to beep. Here are some of the common ones.

Beeps at start up...

8 Beeps on startup means the LCD on system has failed (or is failing). 6 on startup would mean it is your GPU.

You might want to try running a LCD Test, as well as a Pre-boot System Assessment.

So now you are probably thinking "How to run these tests?"

First, turn off your laptop.

For the LCD Test...

Hold down the 'D' key and then turn on your laptop
Keep holding down 'D' and you should see color bars on your LCD.

Again, turn off the laptop...

For the Pre-boot System Assessment...

Hit the 'F12' key immediately after turning on your system.
From the options displayed, choose "Diagnostics" .

This will tell you if there are any errors that you need to address/fix.


Other beep codes....

NOTE: Due to the fact that different manufacturers with this BIOS have different codes, the beep codes may vary.

Below are the AMI BIOS Beep codes that can occur.

1 short - DRAM refresh failure
2 short - Parity circuit failure
3 short - Base 64K RAM failure
4 short - System timer failure
5 short - Process failure
6 short - Keyboard controller Gate A20 error
7 short - Virtual mode exception error
8 short - Display memory Read/Write test failure
9 short - ROM BIOS checksum failure
10 short - CMOS shutdown Read/Write error
11 short - Cache Memory error
1 long, 3 short - Conventional/Extended memory failure
1 long, 8 short - Display/Retrace test failed
two-tone siren - Low CPU Fan speed, Voltage Level issue

Below are Award BIOS Beep codes that can occur.

1 long, 2 short - Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information.

1 long, 3 short - Video card not detected (reseat video card) or bad video card

Beeps repeating endlessly - RAM problem.

Repeated high frequency beeps while PC is running - Overheating processor (CPU).

Repeated beeps alternating high & low frequency - Issue with the processor (CPU), possibly damaged.

Dell beep codes

1 beep - BIOS ROM corruption or failure
2 beeps - Memory (RAM) not detected
3 beeps - Motherboard failure
4 beeps - Memory (RAM) failure
5 beeps - CMOS Battery failure
6 beeps - Video card failure
7 beeps - Bad processor (CPU)

It doesn't boot long enough to press any button.
I have a feeling it's a VRM issue.