Random question. My friend's cousin has a Dell Inspiron 1501. She just called me to have me take a look at her laptop. She says it won't boot up and the screen flickers for a minute then cut's off.

I've figured out that the laptop runs fine when it's not plugged into the A/C power adapter, but when i plug in the power cord, it immediately cuts off. If i try to boot it up with the cord plugged in, it flickers for a few seconds, then the screen completely shuts off.

When the cord isn't plugged in it runs fine, but there is a slight buzzing sound being made from around the port you plug the power cable into.

I assume that's what the problem is, but I was wondering if anyone here thought of anything I could check first, or if they'd had this problem and know of an easy fix. I don't have any extra power cables that fit her laptop that I could check with to see if its just the cable, but considering the buzzing noise on the laptop, i have a feeling it might be the power supply or whatever.

any ideas other than that?

6/2/2009 2:46:19 PM

sounds like power supply to me

6/2/2009 2:57:08 PM

yeah thats what i figured, but i think i figured it out...

just for shits and giggles i decided to plug my desktop monitor at work into the laptop real quick and turn it on. the computer itself boots up fine, but as soon as you plug the power cable into it, the laptop screen cuts off. it displays fine on the monitor i have plugged into it, but its really really dim on the laptop. you have to look at it in sunlight to see the background. i tried adjusting the brightness settings on it, but it's turned up all the way.

it could still be the power supply malfunctioning, causing the screen to go really dark, or it could be a screen issue

6/2/2009 3:16:50 PM

It could be a grounding problem. Dell power supplies are often interchangeable. See it you can't try someone else's power supply.

6/2/2009 4:11:06 PM