Laptop suddenly died on me!

[Andeh13]

My year old dell inspiron 17r SE suddenly died half way through a session in planetside 2. It was on a tray so didn't overheat and had only been on for 15mins.

it was running fine then just cut out. I am unable to restart it, with/without battery plugged in, but most bizarrely when I plug in the power lead the blue led at the end turns off. When I unplug the power lead and unplug and re plug it in from the mains the blue led turns on again... Until plugged in where it shuts off again.

Laptop is totally lifeless, no lights or noises when 'turned on'. No other devices on the power extension lead are effected.

Anyone ever heard of this before?

[DDY]

My first thought is a dead motherboard, something to do with the power supply circuitry by your description because your charger is being shorted when it's plugged in.

I've had something very similar but accompanied by smoke, a power regulator had blown on the motherboard.

[g8ina]

Dead PSU block, run battery fully dead ?

Can you get to the BIOS battery ? If so take it out, leave it for an hour or so, then try again, after checking the power.

[Phage]

I suspect the power brick itself. Do you have another one ?
Also Dell RMA service is brill. I just got a new keyboard for this Inspiron shipped to me overnight when a key stuck.

[razer121]

Right this may sound odd but i had a similar issue where my laptop wouldnt turn on, but mine was even when plugged in! however when i removed the keyboard boom it worked! so maybe start removing parts and see what happens?

[Andeh13]

It is covered under warranty & I have also found dell to be pretty good once you dig through their awful phone system and numpties on the other side of it. Next business day fix is great, but due to my work I will have to try and convince them to come out on Friday afternoon. Wish it could have happened last week, the OH had it off and engineer could have come out whenever!

The battery is fully charged and it wont even boot from that. Battery removed, powerbrick plugged in is the same - no boot!

I also suspect a short on the motherboard/power handling side of it, as it makes sense with it tripping off the powerbrick. I had problems with the webcam/mic so hopefully they will get fixed as well. I think the last engineer who came out to fix the damn thing forgot to plug them in!!