M4500 possible corrupt BIOS?

Recently acquired an M4500, which seems to show absolutely no sign of life - except the fact that when hooked up to the mains (without pressing the power button - I get no charging or power lights whatsoever), the CPU and GPU heat up. My gut instinct is corrupt BIOS or dead board - is there anything I can do without specialist equipment here? I do have access to a heatgun and am tempted to try reflowing the board.

 

Before I would try anything that drastic, I would check the basics.
Did you check the plugs?
Have you tried a hard reset?
Does the laptop have RAM?
Is it installed correctly and is it the right type?
Have you checked the power supply/battery?
Have you considered a failed inverter board?

 

Done a hard reset, tried different RAM (and no RAM to see if I got any error codes - nothing) - plug seems fine and power seems to be getting to it. Battery and charger work fine on an E6400 I have lying around. No video output at all, internal or external. Literally no sign of life other than if the charger is connected, the CPU/GPU heatpipes will be hot to the touch.