Laptop has died...I think.

[Lowfellboy]

Hello all, help or advice please.

My daughter dropped her laptop down the stairs, although some of the plastic trim had cracked or fell off, it still worked apart from the DVD drive being stuck.

This was 3 months ago.

Last night it would not boot up, no screen or nothing. What did happen was it started beeping as if low on battery, and when you try to switch on it the whirring sound starts for a few seconds then nothing.

My initial thought as a non PC person is the power pack has failed or the screen does not work.

I know I will have to get expert help in to see if it is worth repairing, but I was hoping someone could have some idea as to what the problem is.

For reference it is a Dell Inspiron.

 

Thanks in advance.

[KenB]

Hi,

 

I can't see that the stair incident 3 months ago would be related to your present problem.

 

The problem with laptops is - they are so difficult to work on !!

 

Try taking the battery out and use just the power adapter.

If that fails swap over and try just the battery.

 

Do you get anything on screen at all ?

[Lowfellboy]

Hi Ken,

 

Firstly thanks to you and anyone else for your help and time.

The screen is blank, and I get the beeping sound, which I have just found out is a BIOS alarm rather than a low battery alarm.

I think I will get some expert help in. Just in case it is irepairable, can the hard drive be saved and the data transffered? as she has a lot of itune albums stored.

 

Thanks again

[Synapse]

The other possibility is that the memory module(s) have come loose. All it normally needs is battery out, mains adapter out, bottom memory cover removing, remove the modules, reinsert them home, reassemble and test.

 

What model Inspiron is it?

[KenB]

The RAM modules - as Synapse suggests - are usually located underneath a panel in the base of the machine.

http://laptoprepairscornwall.co.uk/images/laptop-memory-upgrade.jpg

 

They flip up and are easily taken out and replaced.

[Lowfellboy]

Hello again,

It is a Dell Inspiron 1545, less than 2 years old.

To re-cap, does not start up, no screen, after about two minutes of switching on, it emits the beeps, in groups of 4, ie 1 beep, 2 beep, 3beep, 4 beep, small gap then starts again.

Can the hard drive be transfered to another dell laptop? Reason I ask is that I am resigned to the fact it has gone and may need another, but I would like to save her itune library.

 

Thanks again

[KenB]

Have you tried removing the RAM and replacing them ?

 

Also - it could be one module at fault so you could try them one at a time ( assuming there are 2 )

 

===============

 

In answer to your question:

Can the hard drive be transfered to another dell laptop?

This is totally dependent on which motherboard is on the old and the new laptop.

If they are exactly the same then this may be possible.

 

It is also possible to take the hard drive out of the machine and put it in an enclosure.

This connects up to the USB port and effectively you convert it to an external hard drive.

[Synapse]

Manual link to remove memory is here

 

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1545/en/SM/memory.htm#wp1180190

 

I can't find much useful reference to the bios codes for your machine, the only thing I can think of is calling Dell.

[Lowfellboy]

Many thanks for the advice and replies.

Just to update, I had a local IT expert give it a diagnostic once over before I binned it, and indeed the motherboard and screen were finished. He also backed up the remaining files.

Now I go shopping to the PC store.

 

Thanks again

[KenB]

Thanks for the feedback.

Sad when they go - but they don't last forever :)