Dell Inspirion E1505 Only Starts Sometimes

[Shadow Rider]

My old Dell E1505 is about to hit 5yrs and obviously due for its set of problems. I suddenly can't get the computer past the bios loading screen, altohugh every once in awhile it'll be able to fully load into Windows 7, if this happens, sometimes it still shuts down but normally if I just keep it running it'll just keep running fine, I can eve cut power to it, immediately restart and it'll boot just fine. But if I shut it down and keep it suht down too long then the same issue repeats.

It doesn't seem like a RAM problem and I opened it up to clear dust, but the same issue still exists, can anyone please help me understand what's going on? It's getting harder and harder to boot into windows now.

While posting this, I just managed to get it to boot into W7 again after disconnecting the secondary LCD but it shut down again after booting into Windows....is this a coincidence or can this actually be the impact. It'd be nice to at least take this as a learning opportunity before my Dell friend heads into retirement...

 

[MindoverMaster]

I think this would be your PSU.

Like a car battery, you could have trouble starting it. Once you jumped it, you are fine until you turn it off.

 

[Shadow Rider]

MindoverMaster, you're right, when I turn it on, I left it on for a week and it was still on. And I could even restart no problem so your thinking is very reasonable

I did a search on google to see what a PSU was, is it the adapter? I have two that I tried (the original and a replacement) but fell into the same problem did I understand it incorrectly?

 

[MindoverMaster]

This is a laptop? I thought it was a desktop.

OK, umm, can you try running it without the lithium battery inserted? Any difference?

 

[Shadow Rider]

This is a laptop? I thought it was a desktop.

OK, umm, can you try running it without the lithium battery inserted? Any difference?

Yep it's a laptop. The lithium battery actually died about two years back so it's been running without that for awhile now. Before this, the main issue was just that the processor would go to 100% probably due to overheating, but I lifted the laptop onto a stand and that was resolved until this new issue popped up.