Dell Inspiron 6000 Power on Problems

[Martyn]

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 that won't power on. A friend of mine brought it round and said someone had knocked over a cup of soup into it. I thought it would be a right mess but physically it looks fine. The problem she said was that the screen image was upside down so I thought it would be an easy fix. When I switched it on(or tried to) the three LEDS(Num Lock, Capitals) briefly come one and go off again. You can hear the drive briefly spin. I removed the battery and just went off the pwer supply same problem. I tested the psu output measures correct voltage. My son has a Dell and has the same power supply but still the same. I have tried removing the hard drive, memory, keyboard, cd rom, still the same. She is going to claim it on her insurance but i'm trying to fault find it for my own sanity. I cannot get anything to change what is happening. I have no spares for this model and wondered if the battery is the problem as I read some models do need a battery in them and won't work off the charger alone. By the way the charger light comes on and stays on for a short time but them goes off and there are no lights at all other than the one on the charger block unit. It's frustrating because it is not the problem she brought it round for so I think I'm missing something. Any ideas?

 

[MobileTechie]

Sounds like the mobo or GPU has a fault, which wouldn't be a surprise if it has had liquid on it.

Have you inspected the mobo? Can you see that any soup got to it?

 

[gazza]

Firstly, I would not be powering on a laptop that has had soup spilled over it for you own safety and you could also be damaging the components further by power up the laptop after a spillage.

With spills you can never be sure where the moisture has reached. I would take out the battery and disassemble the laptop to motherboard level and give all the components a chance to completely dry out. Then reassemble after a week or two and then see if she powers up.

 

[Martyn]

I haven't stripped down to MB yet but I suspect that none got down there. I took the keyboard out and you wouldn't have known anything has been spilt. With the consistency of most soups I think none would have got that far. As I say it's an insurance job now but I thought I could be missing something maybe specifically with this model type which I haven't dealt with before.

 

[lebpcmedic]

I had a similar situation on this same model sometime last year. Customer was a truck driver, had the laptop on the seat, and while driving it fell onto the floor. Same symptoms as yours....Somehow when jarred the CPU lock came loose....tightened her up and she worked like a charm.

 

[DarDar]

I fixed a dell 1501 that had a pint of water spilled on it. I got the laptop about a day later and you wouldn't know anything had happened but it had similar symptoms.
Got a pulled mobo for it but it turned out to be the cpu in the end.
Still going to this day (is now working as a media player connected to their tv)

 

[Martyn]

Well I stripped it down and checked the cpu was seated ok. Put it all back together to no avail. Just picked a working one up on Ebay so will have some spares.