Dead Gateway Solo 9300 laptop

[Housefullofgirls]

I have a Solo 9300 from Gateway that will no longer turn on. The power light comes on, but the HDD does not spin, the display stays off and the DVD ROM drawer doesn't open. The battery is pretty much on its "last leg", so I was going to replace that anyway. So, is this just a bad HDD or a combination of things? Thanks for any help/advice you can give.

 

[johnjkr1]

It is easy to tell whether you have a hard drive issue or not, just remove the hard drive. If it turns on without the hard drive, you found your problem. More than likely it is not a hard drive issue. Try it with everthing out (battery, hard drive, pcmcia cards, etc) and if it still does not come up, you either have a mb or cpu issue...(could be ram, but it is unlikely)

 

[Housefullofgirls]

Thanks for your help Johnjkr1. I'll give those suggestions a whirl and take it from there. Thanks again!

 

[johnjkr1]

No problem, hope you get it fixes...cheap.

 

[Housefullofgirls]

It ended up being just the battery. I removed the HDD, RAM, battery,DVD ROM drive and floppy drive. When I turned on the power, it still did nothing. So, I unplugged the power adapter. What was strange, is that with NO battery and NO power the battery light was still on. It took almost 4 minutes for the battery light to go off. When it finally did, I put just the HDD back and turned the unit on...presto! Works like a charm. I turned the unit off then put the drives and memory back in. I turned it back on, and it still works just fine. So, thanks johnjkr1...problem solved.