Inspiron 640m won't run > then "IRQL_not_less_equal" > then won't run again!

Friends,

My name is Walter, and I'm from Chile and I'm posting this cause I've been trying to see what is the matter with my 2 1/2 years old laptop...

Before I start: This computer was working as good as new before this happens. I'm extremely careful when it comes to installing apps, hardware, etc. The day before this madness started my computer was working 90% equal to how I received it.

Now, here comes the story...

1.- A month and something ago, while playing Guitar Zero II, my PC ran out of battery. I turned the whole thing off - closed the game, shut WXP off, etc. And started to charge the battery - it was already 5am and I needed to go to work the day after.

2.- Three days after, I went to my laptop to check my email. The PC started fine, until I opened IE... a blue window popped up and then the PC shut off. "huh?" I said.. "this is wierd"... I try to start my pc and nothing. Power light, lock lights on for 2 seconds (no fan, no hdd, no CD, no nothing) and then the lights would turn off. I try to reboot my pc several times in various moments of the day, and nothing.

3.- Called Dell, and though my warranty was off, the guy from tech support guided me to remove both rams and hard drive (I knew how to get rams out but I didn't know where the HDD was). Once we finished with other tests the guy told me "sorry Sir, your motherboard is fried"

4.- A week ago I was about to press "submit" to a newly DELL pc (I'm starting B-school next week, so I needed a PC), and only because I was a little bit typsy, I got sentimental and said "meeeh, I might as well try it one more time". Took the laptop out of its bag, turn the damn thing on and VOILA! back to life!!!!!!!!!!! (?!?!?!) After this, it was obvious that motherboard wasn't burned - or anything within the PC for that matter. Desperate, I did defragmentations, CHKDSK, and restore WXP to a date in which I knew it was working (april or something) I worked on my computer for the rest of the day without any hickups.

5.- The following day I turn my laptop on again and it gave me a blue screen with the following msg "IRQL_not_less_equal" and died. I looked over the internet and found that one of the reasons could be that some hardware could be damaged, so I took every single part I knew how to take off (both rams, hdd, battery) and started testing. First I put only one ram. Nothing. I swapped the rams. Nothing. I left the "B" ram in the "A" slot. Nothing. "A" ram to "B" slot. Nothing. Took both rams out and installed Hdd. Nothing. Well.. at this point you can imagine i try to reseat and combine everything within my capabilitied.

6.- Today, I was about to buy a new computer again and the exact same thing happened. I know it sounds freaky (it seems that my moribund PC still has some feelings for me? lol), but I need to get this sorted ASAP.

Does anyone have a clue of what could be the cause?

thanks everyone!

W

Where can I find the cable? I just plug the hard drive to some sort of dock within the laptop

Took the case out, but as I said before, it seems that there aren't any cables - just the dock that connectat the hdd with the motherboard.

the HDD dock? yeah, it looks fine. I try and move it around to see if there were any rocking/moving, but nothing at all...

But then, how come my motherboard could be off if it turned on twice?

No, I don't. But I have come across an owner of the same machine. He told me I could open his PC on wednesday and exchange parts around. The only thing is that I don't know how to take the CPU out....

8:25am...

Came to the computer to see if I had new posts and to see if the computer would awake again, and here it is... working.

1.- I removed the BIOS battery yesterday and I plugged it again.

2.- It is telling me that there are 4 hardwares waiting to be installed - I had this message before in one of the other "awakenings". One of the devices is a "network device"

From this, I can add another element to the story..

A month and a half ago I decided to re-install my wifi card, which wasn't working. I try installing it using the original DELL CDs, but it didn't work. So I tried downloading it from the DELL webpage.

I'm going to leave my computer as it is now - with the assistant for new hardware" open until I receive a reply...

GHN;

Sorry if I haven't been clear enough in my last post

Yesterday, after you told me to check the HDD dock, I decided to reseat all the removable pieces (WI-FI card, HDD, RAMs) and also I took the battery out - I thought that this whole issue could have started with a problem in the BIOS battery.

To answer your questions.

1.- I did took it apart from the get-go, trying to see if reseating could do anything at all.

2.- Yes. This was yesterday.

3.- Correct. I try to re install the drivers for the wi-fi card. I didn't change the hardware.

4.- I downloaded the drivers from the Dell Support site a month and a half ago and they didn't work at all.