Dell D620 Laptop startup problem

[Cal Boy]

I have a Dell 620 Laptop that will not start - a sudden problem. The on-light
lights, but the hard drive lights but briefly.

I tried to cold boot by removing the battery and coin battery, which worked a
couple of times with my D610 that had the same problem, but this did not fix the problem.

Any suggestions?

Thank you,

Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

To malmental,

Thank you for your response. I finally have an afternoon off where I can address the problem I'm having.

I had the problem with the D620 laptop where it would not boot up; not with my D610. When I start the laptop, my power light goes on, and the hard drive light will light up briefly, but then go out as the computer shuts down. I thought this was a similar problem I had with the D610 - it did not start, so I assumed a boot problem, and removed the removeable battery and the internal battery, then reassembled them. The D610 did restart properly. However, with my D620, this operation of removing batteries and then replacing them did not work, the laptop would still not go on.

I just had ordered a replacement mother board and installed it, with suggestion from others online that the Nvidia card may have destroyed mother board components. The laptop still will not work. The hard drive light will light for an instant, then go out as the computer shuts down. This would leave the hard drive, or perhaps the memory at fault.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thank you,
Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

To malmental,

Also, I forgot to mention, the D610 and D620 hard drives are not the same. The D620 hard drive will interchange with a D630, but not back to the D610 hard drive.

Thank you,
Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

To malmental,

Thank you for your advise. New developments, starting with an error on my part: since the system board came with a CPU heat sink, I didn't look to see if it was with a CPU! I found out it didn't have one, so I put mine in, however, upon start-up the laptop now only the shift lock and scroll lock lights flash for about a minute, then the unit shuts down.

Another blog says this may be a memory problem, where the RAM is not recognized.

I will remove one, and then exchange it with the other.

I'm open to any more expertise also.

Thanks,
Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

I did fiddle with the RAM: I switched the RAM boards, using only one, and the laptop worked. While the laptop initially wanted a f2 bootup, it did accept the second RAM module.

I couldn't get the WLAN to work, so I used my old one, with success!

This troubleshooting process can be exasperating; but rewarding if it works!

Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

To malmental,

Thank you for your help. I do have a question for you: what does generally happen if the hard drive fails in such a laptop? I've worked mostly with PCs.

Thank you,
Walter

 

[Cal Boy]

Yes, E-bay is how I got the motherboard for the D620.

Thanks for your help!
Walter