Inspiron 1501 Won't Power On - Hel Needed in Troubleshooting

A

amodoko

Member
Hi, a friend of mine has a Dell Inspiron 1501 that stopped working on him one day. He asked me if I could try to fix it for him in my spare time and so I told him I would try (I'm not great with computers though).

When he gave it to me I just charged it for a few days and then powered it on, and I noticed that the light indicators would go on. I could open and close the DVD drive with the button, it had some other lights on, so I thought maybe the screen went out. I then kind of forgot about the laptop, left it for a month, came back to it again to just make sure that it needed a new screen, and so I charged it for a few days, and now it won't power on at all.

When I plug in the AC adapter, the AC adapter lights up, and the Battery indicator on the laptop lights up. Then after a few seconds the Battery indicator light starts to blink. Then when I come back a day later, the battery indicator light is not lighting up or blinking at all.

I googled Inspiron 1501 issues online and it seems that Inspiron 1501s have issues like this a lot. I don't know how to get it to power on like I did a few months ago. And on top of that, I don't know if it needs a new screen. I'm just trying to figure out what is wrong with it so I can figure out if I need to buy another identical laptop online for parts and then what parts need to be swapped out.

I'm kind of just doing this for fun, so I'm planning on getting it running and will update this thread as I receive help here to let people know what works and what doesn't. Thanks in advance!
 
You definately don't need to charge it for a couple days. I had a 1501. I believe the charging light blinking meant that it was almost at 100 percent. You can use it while its plugged in, even if the battery is dead. Remove the battery and just use AC power and see if it turns on.
 
The reason I left it charging for a few days was I once had an Inspiron 8600 and didn't charge it for a week. Came home, plugged it in and it wouldn't turn on. Took the battery out and plugged it in, and it wouldn't turn on. Then I left it charging for a day and it finally turned on. So I thought the 1501 may do something similar.

But to get back to the 1501, I took out the battery and plugged the laptop in and it won't turn on either. But that's weird, just a month ago it would turn on but the screen would just be black. I haven't done anything to it since then. It has just been sitting on the floor for a month and wasn't plugged in until a few days ago. So it should turn on I would think.

I also examined it a bit, looks like on the back the screws that hold the hard drive in are gone so I can pop the hard drive in and out easily. I'm guessing he had tried to fix it himself at first. But that shouldn't affect it from turning on.

There are also four other screws missing on the bottom of the laptop, but once again, I'm thinking those shouldn't affect anything.

So for step 1... Plugged in laptop without battery installed... won't turn on.

Should I remove the RAM and reinstall it or something? What do you think my next step should be for troubleshooting?
 
Anyone think they know what the problem may be? Or what the possibilities are? I'm thinking either the motherboard is bad or something in the charging mechanism is bad (the power adapter is good though I believe, as I tried another one that should be compatible and it still wouldn't turn on). I'm assuming it is the motherboard or the charging mechanism on the laptop side (not the power adapter side).
 
It's an old machine. Either way the cost to repair is gonna be more than what its worth. Just buy a cheap laptop.
 
I agree, just wanted to tinker with it for fun. I'll mess with it a bit more and possibly buy a cheap parts laptop to swap stuff. If I can't get it going, I'll just buy a running cheap laptop and just put in his old hard drive in the running one so he can at least have his old files back.
 
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