Laptop disposal

neilmcl

I've an old, unable to start, Dell Inspiron 15 (3531) which I want to dispose of and whilst I could either tip it or give it away free for spares and repairs I was wondering if it's actually worth listing it on FB with a small price, would it be actually worth anything. Everything worked fine on it until it stopped being able to boot up, I've removed the SSD and memory, the battery is decent and it would come with the original charger/cable. I think it only had a intel dual core processor but was still fairly nippy.

cx6

Yes, or eBay - someone will want it!

GDB2222

I'm using a 3531 to type this. It's a useful machine, but I'd not describe mine as 'nippy'.

It's more useful to someone trying to repair it if you reinstall the RAM. If you do that does it get to the BIOS screen?

neilmcl

GDB2222 said:

I'm using a 3531 to type this. It's a useful machine, but I'd not describe mine as 'nippy'.

It's more useful to someone trying to repair it if you reinstall the RAM. If you do that does it get to the BIOS screen?

No BIOS, just refuses to start, you get the white power light come on briefly but that's it. I've got a funny feeling the motherboard is kaput. Do you think someone might give me £20/£30 or is that taking the mick for a non working (probably not worth repairing) laptop?

cx6

well the screen and keyboard and case are worth something to someone. Worth putting it on - what do you have to lose?

As above, unless you really need the RAM, putting it back in would help its resale.

Otherwise, if you feel like it, strip it down and sell the parts separately - you would be surprised what people buy!

CoastingHatbox

Put it on ebay with a low reserve and see what happens.

SurferDan

Have you tried changing the BIOS battery?
 

googler

It'll be worth something to someone on eBay as spares or repair. 

Give it a go on there, or gumtree.

As was said, replace the BIOS battery, and see if that kicks it into life

neilmcl

SurferDan said:

Have you tried changing the BIOS battery?
 

Good shout, I'd forgot about that. Tried it this morning, which was a right pain as you have to completely disassemble the whole laptop to get to it, but it didn't work.

I'm not sure if it's the screen now, even though that's been replaced in the past but the laptop doesn't have a VGA port and can't get an external monitor to communicate via HDMI.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

neilmcl said:

SurferDan said:

Have you tried changing the BIOS battery?
 

Good shout, I'd forgot about that. Tried it this morning, which was a right pain as you have to completely disassemble the whole laptop to get to it, but it didn't work.

I'm not sure if it's the screen now, even though that's been replaced in the past but the laptop doesn't have a VGA port and can't get an external monitor to communicate via HDMI.

You would hear the fans spinning up, regardless, if it were the screen.

If only a light but nothing else, I would suspect BIOS corruption and would run a BIOS recovery.  I don't have the time to research the BIOS recovery step for your particular model; but here is the kind of thing for which you might want to look: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/solved-recover-dell-inspiron-laptop-corrupted-bios-how-roland-ihasz

It's too old for these steps: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000132453/how-to-recover-the-bios-on-a-dell-computer-or-tablet