HELP w/ dell latitude d620

i recently bought a dell from craigslist a month or so ago and seemed to work fine, i recently installed ubuntu on it, i dont know if it has anything to do with my problem but anyways...

problem started when the laptop would shut off unexpectedly, but would start right back up fine.. i think it was due to overheating im not sure if the fan is working or not bcuz i hear no sounds coming from it. it showed a screen saying it shut down bcuz of it was getting too hot twice. i opened it up and checked for dust in the fan and cleaned it up. after it shut down about 3 or 4 times while using it, it wouldnt reboot. when i push the power button the three caps lock, number lock, and scroll lock will flash as does the power light then it will shut back down. occasionally it will boot and make it as far as the desktop screen then the screen will go black, but the lights will still be on as if the computer is still running, and i will have to hold the power button down to get it to turn off.

one thing i have noticed is that with the hard drive in the laptop it will make a beep noise then shutdown, if the hard drive is out it will shut down with no noise.

i have tried everything, i have reseated the ddr memory and tried running off just the power cable or just the battery with no success.

any suggestions as to why this has happened will be greatly appreciated!

 

Hold the Fn-key as you press the power button; this will load Dell Diagnostics.

Hopefully it might tell you something of use.

 

i tried holding Fn down.. still shut right back off.. i know the batteries are good as i have two and they both show full charge.

 

This is Dell's POST code for motherboard failure. Something on the board probably overheated during those thermal events and was permanently damaged.
Might have even happened before you bought it.

 

if the motherboard is damaged i dont see why sometimes it will make it all the way to the desktop before locking up.. is this something fairly common with shot mobos?

 

That makes perfect sense to me. I would test out all of the hardware though.
Memtest: http://www.memtest.org/
Video Memory Test: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5896.html
GWscan (hard drive): http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn&param=GWSCAN512

That'll cover your first few bases.

 

Does this machine have an nvidia graphics chip? If it does I would say that is the source of your problem. Also when you took it apart did you actually remove the palmrest and check for dust/dirt/hair/lint between the fan the heatsink?

 

i can never get it to stay on long enough to download and install anything.. i ran diagnostics while it was booting twice and both times a problem occured when checking the memory.. maybe this is the problem?

 

i believe so, but i am not sure.. where can i check?

yes i did remove the heatsink adn the fan.. i think when i changed the OS to ubuntu the fan stopped working at that point

 

btw.. i really appreciate everyones help