Last week, my wife was not able to turn on the laptop. The laptop could not boot up. It did not even POST. The power and wifi LEDs light up for 5 seconds and power off. I first thought maybe it is a flat battery. Tried with the power adapter, took the battery off, problem persisted. The first thing came to my mine was the motherboard fried. I googled for information to see if there are similar symptom. Negative. Dell support (web) suggested to get call for support which I could not. It is out of warranty.
My wife suggested to dismantle the laptop, which is the only option we got other than sending it to the shop. OK, unscrew every screw i could find but I still couldn't get disassemble the laptop. Somehow or rather, it came to my mind that I should google for a youtube video on how to disassemble dell laptop and yes, I could find it!
Note: You do not need to unscrew the screws at bottom to disassemble the keyboard.
Thanks to my ipod touch, I could work side by side with the video. I follow the exact shown in the video, I got the keyboard disassemble and immediately, I suspected the RAM could be culprit. Without hesitation, I replace the RAM under the keyboard with the other piece behind the laptop. Startup - It is alive!
I then stuffed the suspicious RAM back of the laptop and it boots. However, when I turn it off, It saw a blue death screen and the laptop power off immediately. It failed to power up. But this time, the power LED up, cap locks LED blinked instead. Some dell's error code? I then removed and reinstalled the RAM under the keyboard, and it's up again.
It's confirmed. I have got a faulty RAM - I call it the dark RAM.
The laptop is now working fine with my other piece of spare RAM which means, it is not the RAM slot. The motherboard is intact. (phew...)
I have saved the laptop! Credits to my wife, apple ipod touch, google, youtube and the guy who posted the video.
No comments:
Post a Comment