Dead Inspiron 1545

Hi can someone please give me some advice.

My sons laptop (Inspiron 1545) battery has never been brilliant only giving about 10 mins of usage whilst not on a charger, but, this hasnt really been a problem as he only uses it at home where it can be plugged in constantly.

Unfortunately though, it was left running this morning without the power supply plugged in and totally drained the battery.

Now we cant get the machine to boot up, power supply is plugged in, the fan starts then less than a second (even before the screen comes on) all is silent again.

If you try to unplug the power supply during this time the light just goes read and all dies again.

The battery isnt getting any charge whilst just left plugged in.

Is this usual to have to have some charge in the battery for the machine to boot ?

Is there any way I can directly get some charge into the battery ?

Is there likely to be another problem thats causing this ? (as if there is going to be a string of problems I would just be throwing away £30 if I bought a new battery)

Thanks in advance for any help

 

You do not need to have a working battery to have the machine start.

If you have confirmed that your power brick is working properly and the machine doesn't start, there is a problem on the machine's end, and, in this case, it is most likely a bad motherboard.

 

Hi managed to get some charge in the battery and after reading that it should boot even with duff batt whilst on charger started doing a lot of googleing.

Discovered that the reason could be screen related and causing system halt on post so I removed the screen frame to check if there were any obvious connection issues.

All connectors seem fine so plugged battery and charger in to attempt a boot whilst I had the frame off.

Success, all started fine, left it for an hour, powered down and booted again with no problems.

Feeling smug I removed all power, reassembled the frame then turned on.

Now it gets to the end of the POST and goes all dim before you can even enter BIOS setup.

Ive tried removing the frame again and booting and Voilla, all boots fine.

Im guessing that the screen has been changed in the past as the 2 screws that should be on the bottom of the screen holding the bracket to the lid are absent, could there be a grounding issue there ?

Whilst confused and frustrated I have a few pathways to follow but wanted some advice before I start spending my hard earned on a 5yo lappy.

My first suspicion is that the signal ribbon cable has had its day, thinking thats why all working fine whilst the frame is off and its got plenty of slack. Do you folks think that replacing this would be a likely resolution ?

After that considering changing inverter, any thoughts ?

Or could it be the entire screen replacement ? although there are no dead spots and all looks good and crisp whilst the frame is removed.

Thanks again for any advice.

 

Thanks wolf, with what you posted now knowing that it should boot on PSU alone been doing a bit of goggling and am now norrowing down the problem to the display panel.

As its obviously not power related I've started a new thread titled Dead 1545 Revisited describing where I'm up to at the moment.

Fingers crossed this one isnt going to beat me

 

Just noticed whilst having the machine running for a bit without the frame on, the screen had gone into sleep mode (timeout after screensaver) and when restored there was a slight amount of screen flicker that sorted itself out after about 20 secs, hadn't noticed before but seems it sorts itself out, the flickering would be going on during windows boot black screen so wouldn't be obvious.

Could this be a sign of a component being on its way out ? is this normal ?

 

Thanks moderator for joining the threads. I did think about just continuing the first one but seems I had ruled out the problem described in the OP with help from commander wolf and discovered it was something completely different I thought starting a new thread would be the best way forward.

That way someone who has experienced a similar screen problem may have read it rather than seeing the thread and thinking 'that's a battery problem and I've already seen it'. Oh well it was only a thought

 

There is a little battery in the motherboard, You don't need to keep the primary inside, Try cleaning dust refresh the BIOS and detect the motherboards problems.