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Dell Latitude D400 won't start up.

post #1 of 11
12/16/10 at 4:21am
Thread Starter 
Just got an old D400 and when pushing the power button all led's light up, stay like this for 3-4 secs then turn off.
Does anybody know why this happens?
Power adapter is original. Tried another one and it's the same.
Tested power adapters on a D505 and they work both properly.
Battery on the D400 is okay; tested it on another working D400.
Is it a bad motherboard issue ?

Thank you in advance.
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post #2 of 11
12/16/10 at 5:04am
It can be a motherboard issue, but there are a few things to check first.

Remove hard drive, CD ROm and waireless card

Try booting on just a battery and then just the AC power (no Battery installed)

If you have 2 memory chips installed try removing one of them, and test the other chip in both positions, then try the other one in both positions.

If you only have one memory chip, try to borrow another one from another laptop and test.

See how these checks go.
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post #3 of 11
12/16/10 at 6:55pm
Thread Starter 
Done all of those already and no cookie.
Three different types of ddr memory tested.
I've also seen D600 and D505 do this led on/off trick and there's no hope for them.

So I guess it's MB related.

Thank you again.
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post #4 of 11
12/16/10 at 7:48pm
Bake it

cheers ...
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post #5 of 11
12/16/10 at 10:39pm
it could be the CPU as well

You can try to reseat it, or swap it with another one

but other wise yeah dead Mobo
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post #6 of 11
12/18/10 at 3:07pm
Thread Starter 
Well swapping the proc. I didn't try, but is the cpu not soldered on the MB in the Latitude D400 ?
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post #7 of 11
12/18/10 at 5:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by elbutchos View Post
Well swapping the proc. I didn't try, but is the cpu not soldered on the MB in the Latitude D400 ?

I hope not

cheers ...
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post #8 of 11
1/18/11 at 6:57pm
This is a symptom of bad RAM. check to see is the ram has come loose. If so reset and power on the system. If still having issue, you should swap out the ram.
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post #9 of 11
1/18/11 at 7:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhelsdon View Post
This is a symptom of bad RAM. check to see is the ram has come loose. If so reset and power on the system. If still having issue, you should swap out the ram.
100% sure? elbutchos and dave-p already tried these out already, shouldn't be the motherboard issue?

cheers ...
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post #10 of 11
1/19/11 at 5:52pm

Possible solution

Usually is you get power light for a second or two, but the system wont enter into boot screen, then the issue is bad ram. It does not mean this is the only possible cause. There is the possibility that the system board, the CPU, or even the battery are damaged and are effecting the system start up process.

If the system was overheating prior to this symptom, there is a good chance the system board or CPU are damaged.
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post #11 of 11
4/15/11 at 3:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhelsdon View Post

Usually is you get power light for a second or two, but the system wont enter into boot screen, then the issue is bad ram. It does not mean this is the only possible cause. There is the possibility that the system board, the CPU, or even the battery are damaged and are effecting the system start up process.

If the system was overheating prior to this symptom, there is a good chance the system board or CPU are damaged.

Interesting... A week ago my trusted Precision M60 started doing the same thing. Hitting the power button would elicit a high-pitched electrical whine, the CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK, SCROLL LOCK lights would flash, and then it would die. I found removing the hard drive would get the system to power on at times. Holding it in weird angles seemed to work too. Pressure on the left side of the system worked as well. It would boot into Windows but then it would freeze solid. I disassembled the entire system, reseated the CPU, reseated the RAM, etc. but no dice. No change. Now it doesn't even that anymore.

It was an 8 year old system so I just ordered a new laptop. Googling around I saw several older Dell laptops going through the same issue. What cracks me up is that I have two very old Inspiron 3700 and Inspiron 4000 laptops (older than even the M60) that still work just fine. Anyway, I don't mean to threadjack but I'll be following your progress closely to see if you guys come up with something I haven't thought of so far.
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