Dell inspiron 6400 won't turn on

picassopete

Hi, i wonder if anyone could help please. My son has been given a laptop, we knew it wasn't working but not what was wrong. It didn't have a charger so we bought a new one.
As soon as you turn it on, the three green lights go on and it starts to humm but in 2 seconds it clicks and turns itself of again. There isn't time to start it in safe mode, the screen doesn't show any sign of life.
Someone said i should hold the button in for 30 seconds without the battery or power supply. But this didn't work either. I'm at a loss now, has anyone any ideas?
Many thanks

CHR15

Could be so many things.

Try opening up the memory cover to see if the memory is fitted correctly (pull them out and re seat them). Try new memory if you have any to hand.

See if the CPU fan is spinning when you switch it on (you have to be quite dextrous to hold it on its side whilst turning it on and looking at the fan).

Open all the covers for a good eyeballing (you have nothing to lose).

leseul

Do you get any beeps before it turns off? If so how many and how frequent?

Is this the advice you were given previously?

Try unplugging the battery and AC adapter, then press and hold the power button to drain out all the extra power.

Then, plug just the AC adapter in and turn the computer on while holding down the <Fn> key. Watch the lock lights (num lock, caps lock, scroll lock) and see what they do.

picassopete

Thank you both for your replies. Yes the advice about turning it off and on again etc is what i have already done. All the caps lock lights up then ust clicks off again, no bleeps.
i THINK i have the memory cover off, its like a green circuit board underneath. Nothing seems out of place but it does look a bit grubby under there so i guess that may be the problem.

CHR15

You should see at least one stick of RAM under the cover. It slots into a little silver clip and sits at a slight angle.

There are normally two of these silver clips (for two sticks of ram)

macman

Is there any RAM installed? It's not going to boot into Windows without any.