stuckinstandby    

Hoping someone might have come across the problem with a Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop.

When I press the power button nothing much happens: two LEDs at the front (power and hard disk) light, and the 3 caps-lock, num-lock, scroll-lock keys flash once. Apart from that nothing – no video, no fan noise. Tried it connected to an external monitor and nothing on that either.

This is with the (dead) battery removed and only the power supply connected.

To rule out anything else I’ve removed the hard disk and memory but it’s still the same.

Here’s a video:

Some of the suggestions I’ve had:

• bad power cord – No. Tested and working on another Inspiron 1300.
• bad cpu – No. Tested and working on another Inspiron 1300.
• bad ram – No. Tested and working on another Inspiron 1300.
• badly seated ram – No. Removed and reseated. No change.
• touch pad/lid magnet fault – No. Tired with touchpad disconnected. No change

Someone pointed out that the machine would not boot without any ram. Of course this is true, but the correct sequence with no ram fitted is as follows (tested on another working 1300):
1. Power indicator on. Disk, battery, wifi lights off.
2. Num-lock, caps-lock and scroll-lock flash and then caps-lock and scroll-lock stay on.
3. Stays like this for 10 seconds (nothing on screen, no fans).
4. All LEDs go off.

So, it seems the faulty laptop is failing before this. Adding ram doesn’t change the sequence.

Suggestions welcomed.