Greetings Sue!

I'm sorry to see that you're having issues with your laptop. Have you
taken the battery out and attempted to power the laptop up without a
battery in the laptop? If you have and get the same results, then it
can only be one of two things. Either your switching power supply has
gone south OR your laptop's DC regulators & associated electrical
components are suspect. While it's possible to be both, it's less
likely due to protection circuits within the switching power supply.
Many folks are running their laptop without the battery installed to
prolong the batteries life (conserve number of charging cycles) and
reduce overall heat in their laptop so, that can certainly be tried.

Do you know anyone else that has a similar laptop? If so, try their
switching power supply on your laptop. I would recommend this way
instead of trying your power supply on their laptop in the event
something is, in fact, wrong with it. You don't want to potentially
cause issues with their laptop.

The blinking LED is probably a standby mode giving status of power to
the laptop along with potentially detailing charging status. Your
owner's manual should detail this in writing. Documentation,
especially for any laptop, is extremely good thing to hang on to!

If you determine that your switching power supply is fine, then you'll
have little alternative but to have it serviced, especially if you
don't have test equipment and the knowhow to use it along with knowing
what to look for. Reasoning: Going through the learning curve in how
to use such AND what to look for will have to be added to the amount
of time to get into your laptop in *attempts* to ascertain what AND
where the issues are. In any event, keep in mind the current resale
price for the laptop vs. what one would cost new. Hopefully, you've
got you data backed up and do so on a regular basis. The reason for
that is now evident, IF you end up moving to another laptop, the
transfer of that data will be considerably easier.

Good luck

Cheers,
Mr. Mentor


"Sue Miller" <2.sue.miller@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f6q7141scnmf5begjaf850pmnobs7vceq8@4ax.com...
|I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 that won't power up (I press the power
| button and 'nothing' happens) (nothing powers up).
|
| I was happily typing on it when it suddenly shut down. No (obvious)
| power surges and the laptop was only a little warmish on the bottom
| when I checked.
|
| I unplugged the power cord and removed/reseated the battery several
| times to make sure it wasn't some sort of temporary short.
|
| When I plug in the power cable, the battery light blinks
occasionally,
| in the same pattern that it blinks when the laptop is normally shut
| down but connected to the power cord. So, I think that means the
| motherboard is getting power.
|
| Any suggestions as to the most likely culprit? (CPU, motherboard,
| etc?). My first instinct would be something shorted on the
| motherboard, but, then, I wouldn't expect the battery light to
blink.
| I'm not incredibly technical, but, I have replaced the wireless
| antenna, fan, and video card in this same unit, on my own.
|
| Sue
| ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **