TK1420

I have a Dell Latitude C540 that will not power up. The user reported some problems with the display, and indeed it did show some messages regarding the VGA driver not working and only had 16 colors at 800x640 res.

After looking into the BIOS- and not changing anything there- and starting the machine in safe mode, it kept rebooting continually. I finally caught it in boot mode and asked it to shut down. After that, it will no longer boot up at all.

When I press power, the disk and power lights come on for no more than 7 seconds, then it all shuts down. No change if I use different batteries, plug to wall (known good power brick), remove hard disk, reseat memory, even checked CMOS battery.

It just lights a couple lights for 7 seconds and shuts down.

Any ideas? I have a bad feeling this is a bad motherboard...

Thanks in advance for the help!

CaTaLyST

was anything spilled on it? I am guessing

I'd also try the dell support community - they have top notch user help for the model you're working with. I'd post that you were stuck in a continual boot loop.

It could be a bad motherboard, or something as simple as something incorrectly grounded.