On startup there is 4 beeps then 2 then nothing. The laptop belongs to my grandouther.the power coard was frade,so my guess is that's where the problem started.

It might be a hardware fault. Have you tried scrubbing your RAM and reconnecting your hard disk? Sometimes, this solve the problem. If it don't, you can also try changing your RAM, owned by someone else, that is working and place it in your laptop just to cross check if your ram is faulty. You can also use the diagnostic ram tools built by dell themselves to check for fault. :P

Laptops don't boot for the following reasons: 1) Bad Power Cord. 2) Bad DC Power Jack where the power cord plugs into the laptop. 3) Static Charge Buildup. 4) Bad Motherboard.

The above 4 reasons are when you press the power button and absolutely nothing happens. You hear no fans running, no disk drive running, no one time clicking sound on the CD Drive and No light for a second or two when the CD drives click. In the case of a motherboard issue sometimes you will hear beep sounds or see blinking lights. Those beep sounds and blinking lights tells the technician what is going on with your motherboard and why it will not boot.

So you have a power light which means your power cord and dc power jack is good. So lets see if you have a static charge buildup.

Remove the Power Cord and the Battery from the laptop, then Press and Hold the Power Button for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds put the power cord back into the laptop, but leave the battery out. Press the power button to see if it boots. If it does you had a Static Charge Buildup and it's ok to put your battery back in. If it does not you more than likely have an issue with your motherboard.

You particular mode probably has the Nvidia GPU Graphics Card in it and it's a well document known manufacturer's defect all over the internet. If you see lights blinking or hear beeps but nothing appears on the LCD Screen make sure you count the blinks and count the beeps. More than likely you have the Nvidia problem and you missed the recall and the extended warranty because HP got away without tell all their customers. The only way you would have known is if you just happened upon their website.

You'll need to get your Graphics Card Reflowed and that requires a complete disassembly of your laptop. Get a quote from your local repair shop then check out the guys at: http://www.generalsystemsconsulting.com
They will repair it and ship it back by Fedex or UPS and their price will beat most quotes including the shipping.

What type of laptop? What operating system?

Laptops don't boot for the following reasons: 1) Bad Power Cord. 2) Bad DC Power Jack where the power cord plugs into the laptop. 3) Static Charge Buildup. 4) Bad Motherboard.

The above 4 reasons are when you press the power button and absolutely nothing happens. You hear no fans running, no disk drive running, no one time clicking sound on the CD Drive and No light for a second or two when the CD drives click. In the case of a motherboard issue sometimes you will hear beep sounds or see blinking lights. Those beep sounds and blinking lights tells the technician what is going on with your motherboard and why it will not boot. If you see the blinking lights or hear beeps count them.

So you have a power light which means your power cord and dc power jack is good. So lets see if you have a static charge buildup.

Remove the Power Cord and the Battery from the laptop, then Press and Hold the Power Button for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds put the power cord back into the laptop, but leave the battery out. Press the power button to see if it boots. If it does you had a Static Charge Buildup and it's ok to put your battery back in. If it does not you more than likely have an issue with your motherboard.

Try holding Fn + End with battery and power cord out and while still pressing Fn + End plug only power cable back in and try to power on.

I'm guessing it's out of battery. Try plugging in the power cord and let its battery charge for 5 minutes, then hit the power button.

I would say you have destroyed the battery charger. You can get someone with a digital mulitmeter to easily check if its charging or not.

Lack of video signal is usually 1 of 3 things, Power supply (PSU), Video card or Motherboard (mobo).
Situation #1: If you get a blank screen and no sounds or movement it either indicates that the power supply unit (PSU) has failed or something on the motherboard has failed, preventing normal startup.
Situation #1A: You might get some power lights coming on and some fans spinning but the video output does not happen, usually indicates that motherboard or PSU is going out or has gone out. Occasionally it will be due to a weak (damaged) PSU.
Situation #2: If you get sounds (normal Windows startup sounds) and lights but nothing on the screen then it indicates a failed or loose video card.
Always try a different power outlet that you know is working. (Eliminate the easy stuff first!)
If it is out of warranty, try opening up the case, with the power off, of course. If you have Sit #2 and have a video card that you can reseat (take out and then put back in) try that. If it is onboard video then you may have to buy a video card for it.
Also take this time to inspect the capacitors on the motherboard (they look like tiny soda cans) and check for tops that are bulging, swelling or leaking anything. Capacitors should be perfectly flat on top. If you find these then your motherboard is bad (well technically the capacitors on your motherboard are bad). The bad caps will need replacing to fix (not a job for an amateur). If it passes the visual inspection then it may just be your power supply is bad. Notice that a bad PSU does not mean you are getting no power, just not enough to start and run the computer.
A few years ago a company stole the recipe for making capacitors and started making their own capacitors at really cheap prices. The stolen "recipe" was not complete and not correct so these caps started failing after about 2-3 years of use. Emachines, DELL and Gateway were the computer companies most affected by the bad capacitor issues, although any of the big companies could have the same problem. These bad caps also affected power supply makers.
Do you hear anything else during startup, beeps, fans or drives spinning, lights on the front or back of computer flashing or lit up? Do you hear the Windows starting sound?
Let us know more then we can troubleshoot better. Do you have the 4 diagnostic (A,B,C,D) on the rear of the machine? What is the front power light on the CPU doing?

The 1 long 2 short beep code means a problem in the video circuitry and the laptop can't initialize the display. This is usually caused by failure of the integrated video chipset. Unfortunately, on a laptop you can't just open the case and install a new video card like you can on a desktop. You need to replace the mainboard. Replacements are available online. Here is one source found by a Google search. (I'm just using this as an example. I haven't dealt with this site.)

The 4 beep code means no memory detected when the computer started up. No surprise there since you had taken it out.

Does the HDD spinup?
My slightly educated guess... the Ext 2.5in HDD requires more power than it is getting from the single port.

1. Try another port
2. Try it on another computer (all USB ports do not provide 250ma to a load)You may be sharing this avail voltage with all plugged in devices and will have to pull 1-2 others to get the HDD online. Since STARTUP current is high, the HDD pulls all it can from the ports (logical) then settles down and uses 1/3 to keep spinning. After the HDD is up and online, try plugging the other USB devices back in, 1 at a time. If it stalls the HDD - you know the why
3. Take it back and find something a bit less power-hungry (Like Hitichi or Toshiba)

Hi Tom,

Please verify the capacity and how many memory modules you have in the system?

If your system won't turn on and get 2 beeping sounds. It is an issue with your memory (RAM) you may need to reseat the memory card. After reseating the memory card (RAM) and the issue persist and i suggest to check also the warranty of your system from your coomputer manufacturer for part replacement.

keep me posted.

regards,

Jeff