Question Dell laptop requires multiple hard reboots to start

AdeQ

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Feb 6, 2023
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Hi everyone!

I own a Dell Inspiron 7567 bought in September 2017. For about a year now I have started having issues with starting the laptop. When I say come home from work and want to start it up I connect to the AC adapter since the battery is dead (can hold about 1 minute worh of charge) and click the power button. The laptop starts up but it gets stuck at a white DELL logo and clicking any buttons F12, DEL or any else has no effect. I then have to do a "hard reboot" as stated in the "Troubleshooting Power Issues with Your Laptop" and the laptop starts normally. After performing this procedure, putting it to sleep or shutting down the next day sometimes it starts up normally and sometime I have to perform this procedure everyday. Right now I've been testing it with the battery unplugged for about a week and today I did 10 hard reboots which had no effect left the laptop for about 2 hours connected to the power outled and then after 5 more reboots it started finally.

I feel that it is most likely a physical motherboard issue but is there anything I can check that has a chance of being the source of this problem?
 
Things that come to mind if you have a tester or borrowed power brick. Check motherboard battery the coin battery. If and when it is running check hard drive for issues and also how full is hard drive .

How old is the OS meaning are you still running original 2017 install or have you ever refreshed it with a clean install over the years.

If you have a installer for Linux on a USB stick you could see if it boots right up on the NON install trial that Linux let you play around with.

If it just boots and works with the temp Linux than you know your hardware is fine and start looking at Windows or hard drive as the issue. Just places to start.
 
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@AcademicMistake I used this method will see if it helps

@stonecarver So testing with a different might not be possible for me atm but will try to get my hands on one. I have recently swapped the CMOS battery for a new one (about a week ago).

I keep my system on a 256GB SSD which has about 70GB of free space. I also have a 1TB HDD which has about 115GB of free space spread across 3 partitions.

The Windows install I'm currently running has been installed somewhere around 1,5 year ago and in the begginning it ran with no problems.

I have created a USB stick with an Ubuntu image and try testing this.

Due to the random occurence of this issue I will be trying out these steps in the following days when the issue happens and will inform of any new developments.
 
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So after 10 days since last post I have an update just to close the issue for future reference.

I have applied all the suggestions but also did one more thing on top of that. Whilst traversing BIOS settings to check the boot options I was stuck with an idea that the problem at hand may be secure boot since I definetely bought a new windows key because I lost the one provided by manufacturer.

Doing all that seems to have helped as through these 10 days my laptop boots up as intended. It still sometimes has minor hiccups but they are just slightly longer boot up times and definetely not requiring a hard reboot.

So Thank You all for the help provided!