I have a strange laptop problem

themadhacker · Post by **themadhacker** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:36 pm

Ok today I found an old dell latitude in my computer lab's trash. The sticker on it claims that it is a pentium 3

The only thing it is missing is a hard drive. When using batteries or wall power, and I try to turn it on, nothing happens except for the LEDs coming on for about 5 seconds. They then turn off, and nothing else happens. When the lights are on, nothing else seems to be working. Not even the fan is running.

So I am confused as to what is wrong with the laptop. I would really like to get it running at least for the fun of it (though with a pentium 3, there is not much I can do except maybe run old computer games and store mp3s).

Is it because there i no hard drive?. I have an old 2.5 laptop HD from another dell latitude (slightly older), but the plugs won't match up.

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:42 pm

Chances are the screen controller or the screen itself went bad. Latitude D620s and D630s seem to do that a lot, the older ones might have the same problem.

Do you see anything if you shine a bright flashlight on the screen?
Have you tried hitting the "change screen" key combination?
Does VGA or S-Video out work?

The hard drive probably comes with a special connector or bracket that holds it in place that's different between the two models.

themadhacker · Post by **themadhacker** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:43 pm

I have already tried vga out, and still nothing happens. Keep in mind that the fan isn't even running.

themadhacker · Post by **themadhacker** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 2:00 pm

ok, I found that somebody had stolen the ram from it, so I put a ram card in it and it now turns on and sort of works.

It still doesn't have a HD, but when It gets past the dell logo, it takes me to this gray screen that says that the computer is locked and that I need to enter the correct admin password to continue to do anything.

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:19 pm

I think you have to take it apart and unplug the CMOS battery for a couple hours to get past that. If you're lucky, it wouldn't have stored the password on the BIOS flash memory.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 4:39 pm

bicostp wrote:If you're lucky, it wouldn't have stored the password on the BIOS flash memory.

If you're unlucky, you may still have a chance. You can find the master passwords for most major brands, I've never had one work when I needed it, though.
P3 isn't too slow. If you can add at least 512MB of RAM, it would make a nice spare computer.

themadhacker · Post by **themadhacker** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:50 pm

I'll try that thing with the battery, thanks.

and yeah, it would make a nice spare computer, but I don't really want to buy any more laptop ram.

FatylPCs · Post by **FatylPCs** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:11 am

i used to have a really old Dell Latitude and it was the most messed up piece of hardware i've ever owned... mine would not power on without the HDD in. i later found out it was a security mesure of some sort and there was micro switch that checked to see if the drive was in there. if the case is the same here, prahaps shorting the wires together from the switch might let you check out the specs.

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