Laptop won't BOOT...not hard drive, please help!

[DragonReborn]

Hi there, I have a dell 8100 laptop and for some reason my computer wouldn't boot today. It takes VERY long to do go through the boot process and eventually gets to the windows splash screen but then just stays there indefinitely. Won't ever get into windows.

It "felt" like a hard drive problem so i put in a new one but it still is having issues. I can get into the BIOS but everything is very sluggish. I will press a button and then it will take 10 seconds to respond to it. Never seen it before. How could the bios be so slow? Is this a motherboard problem? anyone ever seen it before?

 

[Fardringle]

This could be a memory, CPU, or motherboard problem. Start by testing the RAM with MEMTEST (make a bootable floppy on a working computer and boot the laptop from the floppy. Then test it with PRIME to make sure it's not the CPU. If both tests fail, particularly if it happens with different RAM, the problem is likely with the motherboard (or a bad connection somewhere inside the machine).

 

[DragonReborn]

so hah...so listen to this: it was a battery. wow. that sucked. one battery is completely dead, I popped it out and it's running perfectly now. sigh. thanks for help, sorry to cry wolf. a frickin battery....