Bit worried that the battery doesn't power it up.

I've heard of Dell power cords having issues, especially where the cord comes out of the transformer to go to the laptop. Before buying a new one, you may want to try another power cord first.

Good luck!

I have the same type of laptop. They replaced my hard drive twice because of issues. Whenever I called and told them it was telling me to call them, we would go through a diagnostics and they would send me a new hard drive with NOTHING on it....I had to load everything myself. Oh, and it wasn't a new hard drive...it was refurbished!

As for the power thing, I don't know. My laptop is only a year and a half old and I always have it plugged in. Recenly, I have tried unplugging it to just use the battery...the battery doesn't last for sh*t.

I'm sorry I'm not much help, but he's not the only one to have had troubles. My advice? Don't buy Dell!

CTG:

I'm betting you purchased the laptop with a credit card? Many (most?) credit card companies have a feature which automically doubles the warranty of products you buy up to an extra year. I'd check to see if yours ofers this, as it would allow you to make Dell deal with the problem, instead of you having to futz with it.

When you say it won't power up... does anything happen when you turn it on? ie keyboard lights going on, sound of a fan starting up, anything?

Paul

Battery is probably bad. I would start by removing it and then putting it back, so it's reseated and reset, so to speak. That might get you a surprise reprieve.

It sounds like it is emulating behavior you might see with a dead/dying power supply in a desktop machine, and in a laptop the battery seems to play a similar role and result in similar behaviors.

If possible try putting the drive into another PC and defrag it. I got taught this trick by a PC support person. If you can access the drive but it won't boot of the drive, this trick often works to "fix" the problem.

Defrag often.

Good luck. SG

I'm with Paul and Jay on this one.

More than likely it's a tanked or unseated battery.
I had the same thing happen when I accidentally tried to teach a laptop to fly (I caught it on the second bounce). After reseating the battery it worked as well as it ever had.