Please help me troubleshoot a dead Dell Inspiron 1525

[ibex333]

So I got a laptop from someone for very cheap. I thought this would be a nice project for me. Being an A+ certified technician, I never before opened a laptop in my life. I only worked with desktops, and only PCs at that. Never a mac ; ) I thought I'd start doing something about that horrible hole in my "education" beginning with this laptop.

Anyway, here's the picture:

Dell Inspiron 1525
According to seller been in car accident
Broken display
Damaged body/case. Cracked in various areas, but holding everything together well. Cosmetically very nice and very clean.

Powers on, (no video or post or anything) blinks its leds, fan spins up for about 1 second then abruptly dies. This happens every time. Obviously I dont care about replacing the display, the idea is to use this thing with a monitor if I could fix it.

I did my homework, looked up some guides on you-tube and other websites, then got to work.

I completely disassembled the lappy. Very clean inside. Virtually no dust or debris. A couple of long girls hairs. (such a PITA to disassemble compared to my Lenovo T61 where I had to replace a fan/heatsink assembly - was easier in comparison)
Checked everything. Mobo is very much intact. Everything is where it should be according to the guide online.

1)Removed the thermal pads underneath the heatsink assembly, applied fresh AS thermal compound.
2)Took out the ram sticks, checked them and returned them to their slots just to make sure they were seating properly.
3)Checked the CPU fan. It's super clean. No dust on the fan blades! For a laptop this old... amazing!

Assembled everything back, with fingers crossed turned on, and... SAME thing. Fan spins up fast for a sec, leds on top flash for a split sec, then everything dies. Just the power led stays on.

Should I just cut my losses, sell this thing on e-bay and get another laptop to try and fix, or is there something else I can try? Short of replacing the mobo off course - not worth the money or effort for me.


Thanks.

 

[Charlie98]

My daughter's Dell 1501 AMD laptop does the same thing... the fan goes to 100% and then shuts off (and you can hear the HDD spool up,) part of the POST I'm guessing. ...except hers continues to boot... 😉

It's probably something very simple, you can find all sorts of takeoff parts on eBay. Think of it as an education... if you can get this thing running, everything else should be easy!

FWIW, my Dell 6000 laptop is far easier to disassemble than the 1501, I don't know why... you would think they would be essentially the same.

 

[ibex333]

Well, I tried removing the ram, hard drive, wlan card, even the DVD ROM drive hoping to eliminate a short. Nothing helps. If it's a short, it's clearly in a place where I cannot find it.

Otherwise it's a dead mobo. Looks like this thing is going on ebay.

 

[AFurryReptile]

If it was in an accident, and was DAMAGED because of it, literally anything in there could be causing the problem. Moreso, it could be MULTIPLE failing parts. Sounds like a PITA to fix, to be honest.

If I had to guess, I'd think the battery, power supply or jack, or the motherboard is damaged. Pretty much every other part in there, if malfunctioning, could keep the laptop from starting as well.

Cut your losses man. You'll spend more money trying to get it fixed.

 

[Bubbaleone]

.....thought I'd start doing something about that horrible hole in my "education" beginning with this laptop.

Anyway, here's the picture:

Dell Inspiron 1525
According to seller been in car accident
Broken display
Damaged body/case. Cracked in various areas, but holding everything together well. Cosmetically very nice and very clean.......

You do realize that it took several hundred Gs of impact force to produce that kind of damage? At impact that six pound lappy could have weighed 1,200 (200 Gs) to 2,400 (400 Gs) pounds.