Question Dell 5100 Inspiron won't re-power on for 20min

[13hm13]

I have a 2003 Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop -- used for company legacy apps. It's always on (and has been for 16 years!!). Pretty much trouble free. Except, over the past two years, in the rare case that it needed to be re-booted, I can't get it power on for about 20 min or so.
I press PWR button and the LEDs come on, and fan spins ... but screen remains black. Sometimes it shuts down ... or I shut it down because fan spin is maxed.

It acts like a memory issue. But I have several new memory sticks ... same issue. A while back, I could get it to immediately re-power more frequently if I used 256MB instead of 512MB. Now, even the 256MB causes delay.

I was thinking dry electro caps. But I saw pics of the main board and I saw only few electro caps????

FYI: I do use a newer SSD in this Dell. I replaced the 16-yr-old Hitachi 40GB only a few weeks back (it still works perfectly!)
When the laptop is on, it works perfectly. No blue screens, no lock ups. It's a great computer except for the recent delaly pwr-up issue.

 

[13thmonkey]

If this is for business use i'd virtualise it, so it's no longer dependent on that hardware, it could die tomorrow, what would you do?

 

[13hm13]

If this is for business use i'd virtualise it, so it's no longer dependent on that hardware, it could die tomorrow, what would you do?

Hi,
eBay and the CraigsList is our friend.
Actually, I work for a multi-billion dollar food company. We have many computers even older than that Dell in use.
It's often MUCH MORE $$ to re-train and re-learn than to invest in what has been working--up to a point. And we have several other Dell's that same vintage in storage.

Okay, let's get back to the OP...

 

[13thmonkey]

Pull one of the others out of storage then.

Virtualise it, it'll be exactly the same as your existing machine, only it'll run anywhere. This is a machine that is used to support your company, don't muck about with it.

 

[13thmonkey]

it could easily be dry 'electro caps' or capacitors as they are normally known, doesn't matter if there are a few, or thousands, 1 in the right place would be enough. Possibly in the power brick. Or a battery fault.

 

[13hm13]

Power brick is pretty new (one of the things about this lap that has been replaced at least once).

Batt or AC ... does not affect issue.

 

[13hm13]

Virtualise it, it'll be exactly the same as your existing machine, only it'll run anywhere. This is a machine that is used to support your company, don't muck about with it.

How do I "Virtualize" it?
Again, I'm running XP SP1.

 

[13hm13]

Also, if I did virtualize Win XP, and ran it on a modern laptop or pc, will I notice noticeable performance improvements in XP performance (over the ancient Dell 5100)?