My Dell Inspiron 1100 fell off the table and now it will not boot
Hi, first off this seems like a great site! I’m excited to fix my problem with everyone’s help. Here is my story:
I’ve got a Dell Inspiron 1100 which took an unfortunate fall off my coffee table and did a face plant (screen down) on the floor…after that it will not boot and the display will not show up either. The battery will charge and the power light will come on so I do not think it is a power problem. The fan also turns on for about 10-20 seconds then stops. The power light remains on until I press the power key again.
Now, I’ve done some research on this site and some others and I was able to open up the laptop correctly following a guide and look at everything. Things look okay (nothing was cracked or anything obvious…) and I basically cleaned the inside using an air can and disconnected the keyboard, monitor, and processor and reconnected them all. The problem was the same.
I read on this site that the CPU might not be seated properly but I don’t know how to clean off the old heat sink gel stuff and put the new stuff on or anything else I should check for.
Am I on the right track? Any help or other ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
You are on the right track. I’ve seen some dropped laptops and so far I’ve been able to fix them simply by reseating the connections. Try to turn on the laptop with an external monitor attached and see if you can get video. It is possible that the laptop works fine, but the video cable on the back of the LCD screen was disconnected and you cannot the internal video. Check if the memory module is seated properly; remove it from the memory slot an install back. Check if the wireless card is seated properly. My last dropped laptop didn’t boot because of the not properly connected wireless card. Reconnect all cables that you can access. Any loose connection can prevent the laptop from starting.
As a last resort, when you have nothing to loose, you can try next. Disassemble the laptop and start to assemble it back from scratch. Remove all devices and leave only the system board, the memory and the CPU with the cooling module attached. It should be enough to get a basic video output on an external monitor. After you booted it with video, start attaching other devices and try to turn it on after each step.
You can clean off the old thermal grease I usually use an alcohol wipe. You can get instructions for cleaning the CPU and applying new thermal grease here.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Mike Hingre,
I would try installing another known good memory stick, just in case. If no help, apparently you have a problem with the motherboard.
I don’t work a lot with Dell laptops and cannot give you a better advice.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:47 am
I have an Inspiron 1100 – it will not start now. If you plug it into the wall (with the battery in or out) as soon as you plug it the ac adapter the green power light on the front and the yellow/amber battery light on the front immediately turn on and remain lit. Nothing happens with the machine at all when you push the power button (just the 2 lights on). The only way to get the lights to go out is unplug the a/c adapter and take the battery out. I then try to start w/ just the battery and no a/c power. As soon as you push the power button the same 2 lights come on and the computer does not do anything. I have tried taking out and re seating the memory, hard drive and dvd drive. Is it a motherboard issue? Any suggestions on what else I can do?
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Hi, I had the same issue with my Dell Inspiron 5150. It had dropped and it wouldn’t turn on, not even with the laptop being fully charged. After having taken off the screen and all the components, I dusted the insides and reconected the screen and all was back to normal. I suggest you follow your computer manufacturer’s steps in removing the housing of the computer and try putting it back together again, hopefully it will work.
December 1st, 2007 at 2:19 am
my husband’s dell laptop fell off a tv tray in the garage. I am no computer expert so I don’t know what to do. He is blaming our 12 yr old son because he was sitting next to it. The stupid laptop won’t turn on at all. There are a couple of power lights that turn on but that’s all. Can some one please help??? He is freaking out.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:53 am
hi my dell inspiron 2200 fell off the bed onto my carpet floor I was jus turning it on and now the screen is all scrambled and it is not charging how can I fix it
August 14th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Forgot to mention that I have bought a 2.5″ hard drive caddy to check the hard drive is working. When that arrives and I’ve tested it I’ll report back.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:35 am
I have a four year old inspiron 1100 laptop and recently took it apart and now I can’t get the screen to show anything. I took it apart as far as taking what I think is the CPU out, attached to the heat sink and fan with many pins on the under side. Also took the thing (video card?) to the left of the cpu and the right of the hard drive out. After reconnecting nothing happens. When I press the power button the fan goes, the power light turns on and stays on, the battery light flickers but nothing much from the hard drive LED. Also cannot getany of caps, num or scroll lock LEDs to work. Wireless card shows no response, no flickering lights at all. CD drive is heard to be working. Unusually the thing turns off immediately after pressing the power button i.e. improper shut down procedure. Have also tried removing the RAM and listening for a bleep as mentioned on another site but didn’t hear any beep. Any suggestions?
August 9th, 2007 at 8:57 am
SOroush,
I thryed that, and i do have the same exact problem as WIlliam Bush. so i going to check on the RAM and video card, are there any other steps to when you reset a CPU?
I’ve built computers befor but this is a first…
john
August 1st, 2007 at 12:49 pm
My son dropped his laptop. It was off. When it powers up, it requests a password for the system and then the hard drive. We played with it, using the boot file scenario, and can get it to work about one time out of five. With some more attempts, we discovered the password for the system (11111). It still needs a password for the hard drive. I took it to a shop and they said to replace the mother board and the hard drive. I don’t want to spend that kinfd of money on an older laptop. also, if we can get it to run, sometimes, woudl taht indicate thatthe parts were good and theer is something else wrong?
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Listen people who have a problem with 1100 Inspiron,the problem is simply with the CPU, when you’re re-resting it, remember to have the key opened (on the left of the mother board where you place the processor, then simply, when you place it on, close the lock, THEN screw back the fan back on! Good luck
February 1st, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Anthony,
Take a look at the power jack on the dropped laptop. Does it look dislocated? Here’s my guess. When you dropped the laptop, the power plug pushed the power jack inside the laptop case. Probably it got dislocated and shorted traces on the board. If that’s the case, it’s necessary to open up the laptop and resolder or replace the power jack. You’ll find disassembly instruction on the Dell website.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I have a Dell Latitude D600 that was working perfectly until my daughter knocked it the arm of a sofa. It was plugged into the power jack at the time with no battery connected. It landed on the powerjack and immediatley the power went off. I tried to turn it back on but the power adapter seemed to be dead (no light on). I then tried to run the laptop off a fully charged battery but the laptop still wouldnt power up. I thought the adapter had died so I plugged another one in which was working on another machine I have (D610). As soon as I plugged the jack in the powerlight on the adaptor triped off. the laptop still would not power up. Upon disconnecting the jack the power light still remained off on the adaptor. to get the adaptor working again I had to unplug it from the wall and let it rest a few seconds and then plug it in again. Im guessing the laptop is putting the adaptor in to a safe shutdown mode to prevent damage etc. Has anyone come across this situation and any ideas what may be wrong with what Im assuming is a system board problem. To recap it wont powerup off adaptor or battery and when i plug an adpator in it shuts the adaptor down.
Any help is much appreciated.
Cheers
Anthony
January 16th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
William Bush,
If the notebook suddenly stopped booting and will not display on internal or external screens, the first thing to check is RAM. Make sure the memory is seated securely, reseat it just in case, move it from one slot to another. Test the notebook with a test module if you have it. I believe Dell Inspiron 1100 has a discrete video card, so make sure the video card makes a good contact with the motherboard. Reseat the video card.
To boot any notebook with video you need three main parts: motherboard (with video card), processor and memory. If replacing the RAM module will not help, then probably something is wrong with two other parts.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Hi – After selling a Dell Inspiron 1100 to a mate he has had nothing but problems. Initially we had a problem with the fan which we resolved. However after resolving this the PC will boot but the display now does not show on the Laptop and I cannot get it to show on an external monitor either. I have tried looking around and nothing appears to be cracked, loose or dirty. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Will
January 11th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Hi – I’m having a problem wiht my Dell Inspiron 1100. I’ve had it for about 3 years with no major problems, at least not that I couldnt fix, but yesterday the CD-Rom drive just stopped working. It refuses to recognise any CD-roms, DVDs or audio CDs I put in there – it makes a strange clicking and whirring sound like it’s trying to read it, but doesn’t recognise that there’s anything there. No idea why it’s started doing this – it wasn’t dropped or anything, although I did turn it upside down to tighten a screw up…any ideas would be much appreciated!
January 7th, 2007 at 9:24 am
jbird,
Nope. I don’t sell used parts.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
thanks laptop freak for your quick response all cables have been checked but in my expert computer tech skills haha i made it worse trying to check for the light now i have vertical lines on the dark screen but i did manage to hook it up to my desktop monitor which i learned how to do on your site so i guess im gonna have to break down and put a little cash into my freebie
do u sell used parts ?? thanks again
January 4th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
jbird,
You still see a very dim image on the LCD screen, correct? It’s possible that cables connected to the FL inverter board got loose or you broke the backlight bulb. If you want to try fixing it yourself, you’ll have to open up the laptop case and try reseating the cables. Here’s a manual for Dell Inspiron 1100/5100/5150 laptop and it has disassembly instructions. Remove the display bezel to access the FL inverter board. The inverter should be located below the LCD screen. Make sure that cables on both ends of the inverter are seated properly. Also you might check if the video cable is properly connected to the system board.
January 4th, 2007 at 1:22 am
ok here is the story . a friend of mine gave me an inspiron 1100 that had a virus and wouldnt boot up, so i few days of working with dell support i fixed it and it worked great. so here is the problem i dropped it an hour later(go ahead and laugh everyone else did) but everything works fine except for the monitor is very dim. did i break the backlight? also tried to hook up and external monitor with no luck someone help me cause im still cryin about it thanks
January 1st, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Misty,
Sounds like you have a broken power jack. You mentioned that one pin is shorter than other two, most likely you’ll have to buy a new power jack and replaced the bad one. You’ll need some soldering skills for this repair. It’s not really hard to open the case and remove the motherboard if you follow instructions provide in the Dell service manual.
December 30th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I did not mean half gone, I meant that it was shorter than the other two. Also, is the case hard to open????
December 30th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Hello,
My inspiron 1100 will not hold a charge. I purchased another adapter thinking that was the problem but it still will not work. I can move the cord and it us to flicker. Also, does the power jack have 3 prongs all the same size? One of mine is half gone!
Thanks
December 27th, 2006 at 6:15 am
tried that, no deal, any other suggestions?
December 24th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Mattman,
Did you check if the video cable connector is seated properly on the motherboard? Try reseating the cable.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:15 am
My girlfriend dropped my IBM thinkpad T30. since then i cannot get the LCD to come on. the laptop just turns on for a few seconds and automatically shuts down. i’ve got a used LCD from ebay supposed to be “tested in excellent condition”, when i hook that up, same thing. However I can get the laptop to boot with an external monitor attached. everything works perfect with an external monitor. as soon as i try to switch to the internal LCD, it shuts off right away. any helpful comments would be much appreciated. thanks
December 8th, 2006 at 5:19 am
I have an old IBM Thinkpad R31, which I took apart. Once I reassembled it, I can’t get it to boot up when it is not connected to the AC Adaptor. In the absence of the adaptor, when I press the power button, the power led lights up, and the fan comes on for a couple of seconds before dying out – then the power led goes out as well. When connected to the AC Adaptor, it does the same thing, initially, but aways comes on with the second try. The laptop works fine on the battery, as long as I don’t shut off the laptop – in which case, I have to power it on by connecting it to the AC adaptor. Any ideas? I know nothing about laptops. Cheers!
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:01 am
Colby,
Make sure if the hard drive, wireless card, memory cards are seated properly and reseat them just in case. You can access all these modules from the bottom of the laptop, as it shown on the notebook disassembly guide I’ve created for this model. When you turn on the laptop can you hear any strange sounds coming from the hard drive, clicking for example?
December 2nd, 2006 at 10:56 am
hi, i have a toshiba satellite a105-s4211. yesterday i dropped it while it was on, and it fell on its backside, so basically the battery hit the ground first. it worked fine after i dropped it, however, after putting it into hibernate, i tried to start it up and it would not work. it goes thru the toshiba screen fine, but when the screen with all the little blocks across the bottom of the screen comes up, the bar goes across about three blocks. then about two minutes later, it will jump to about a quarter of the way. then about three minutes later, it will go all the way and the windows xp screen comes up. the bar underneath the icon is moving, but nothing happens. and after a couple of minutes on that screen, the screen just goes blank and nothing happens. i have tried taking the battery out and that doesnt solve the problem. i have also tried to start under the last known working configuration, and still no luck. i have never opened a laptop up to fix one, and even if i did, i would not know what to do, so if that is what is needed to fix it, it would be great if you could include a walkthrough. any help would be greatly appreciated.
thank you very much
p.s. i dont know if this will help any, but after the computer is on, and it stops responding, if i press the power button, it shuts off instantly, when usually you have to hold it for two or three seconds.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Hi, I also have Dell Inspiron 1100, I bought from US (I’m living in Thailand” I was drop it before when I put it in my back pack and lift it of, I was forgot to zip close the bad, so the Dell fall about 1 meter to the floor, the corner was hit the floor first and after that, it still working fine. I think may be you’re not tights up the screw? There are lot on them and I tight it up often, I don’t know why it loose some time
June 19th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
its me again, i don’t have an monitor here to try but i will in 2 days…
i cleaned out the heatsink very well (there was ALOT of dust in there in big clumps!)
took out the memory and put it back in
this laptop does not have a wireless card, so i didnt do anything with that.
i bought the thermal grease, but i couldn’t separate the cpu from the heatsink and was afraid to force it. i tried the rotate method.
i couldn’t figure out how to remove the video card…so any help there would be nice. it had a metal shield on top and that came off easily, the harddrive connected to the side and i was able to take that out too, but then what?
the cpu has a screw that is marked “lock” and “unlock” for left and right. im guessing you need to unlock it to remove, then re-insert it and put it back to lock?
i even opened up the lcd screen and saw that the video cable just goes into the back of the shielding on the screen, so i didnt mess with it. still no video.
any help?