Machine Dead 3

[Keyboy]

Hi,

I was running my Dell laptop, Lattitude CPx J with W 98, and it froze up. I pushed the power button and naturally it shutdown. I have done this many times in the past without problems. However, now the machine won't even try to boot. I powered down again and inserted the floppy drive. I inserted my Norton rescue disk and hooked up my Zip disk and inserted the Zip Rescue disk. Again, I tried to boot but nothing happened. I hear a whirr noise for a few seconds with the HD light blinking and then nothing.

Any ideas where I should start to look for the problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ski]

It probably has a bad hardware component, i.e., MB, CPU, etc.
Gotta swap them out to find the bad one, or have a shop test it.

 

[StormcrowGrey]

1) Pull the battery and unplug it to kill all power to it first. Then plug it back in and see if it will boot. This used to happen to me with a laptop. If that dont do it... then what he said.

2) Does it even try to boot at all? Do you get the initial BIOS splash screen as it starts to boot but it stops and hangs without any beeps at all? If so, then it sounds like the BIOS is detecting a bad hardware component and ... like what SKI posted.

 

[thorswolf]

Also, if you happen to have another battery from another CPx (or compatible battery) lying about, try it out. The Dell batteries do much more than just provide juice to the computer. It's also possible that the battery is finished and won't hold a charge anymore BUT a live battery is still required to make most Dell laptops run, even on the AC power.

Hope it helps.

 

[Keyboy]

Helpers here is an update. I dug out the manuals to make sure I removed the components without damaging them. I pulled everything except the HD. Still would not boot. Pulled the HD and got a boot. Reinserted the HD and good boot. Reinserted other pieces removed one at a time and had good boots. Have concluted that the HD needed to be better seated.

Does this sound reasonnable or am I in for something else?

Thanks again.

 

[ski]

It's possible that a loosely connected HD was the cause.
As long as it boots, then you're ok.
If it fails to boot again, then you know where to look.