Dead or Dying Dell Inspiron 1525

[IanShorrock]

Hi,

I recently spilled red wine onto the keyboard of my brand new Dell Inspiron 1525. I switched off as quick as I could and left to dry but as you could imagine it didn't apprecaite it and would not turn back on afterwards. I left it for a week and tried again and low and behold it fired into Vista first time.

I sent it off to be looked at and the motherboard was cleaned up. Everything was working apart from the keyboard and trackpad. With a USB keyboard and mouse it was useable. It now however regularly refuses to boot up. It will boot up at about one attempt in 20.
When it fails to boot it does not reach POST. The multimedia touch control lights do their little flicker thing, the hard drive light flickers for a second or two, the DVD drive flickers, and then nothing. There are no bleeps and a just a blank screen. No lights on the USB keyboard. The power light remains on and I have to power down with the on/off switch to try and reboot. Sometimes I have to remove the battery to power down.

When it does boot up it goes straight into Vista as if there isnt a problem. It works perfectly, software and hardware (apart from the keyboard / trackpad), although the WiFi seems to drop out after about 30 mins.

One time I got the message "Manufacturing Mode - Level 67, Press Fn-X" but as the laptop keyboard is dead I cannot use the Function keys so had to re boot again.

Any ideas. I am hoping that because the fault is intermittent that it is not too serious. Here's hoping !

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ian S

[ahihihi...]

it's dying..

(pull out the battery and disconnect AC power-for immediate action...(common sense)

[IanShorrock]

it's dying..

(pull out the battery and disconnect AC power-for immediate action...(common sense)

Thank you for your reply ahihihi. The power cord and battery were disconnected as quickly as I could at the time. I can assure you I have never moved as fast.
At the moment the laptop is booting up regularly but I would still like to know if there is an underlying problem which may make it unreliable in the future.

Thanks again

[ahihihi...]

hit this

[Suspishio]

A cruel message, ahihihi!

Anyway, red wine leaking into the power handling circuitry or the HDD compartment - damage done before mobo cleaned up. Could have glitched the power, surged to the disk, bad sector. Or gloop still in the connectors somewhere. Anything.

Something like that and I suspect you feared this. We at such great distance would know less than you about the likelihood.

[ahihihi...]

sorry.. yeah phobia.. I'm just suggesting..

( s it depends on what kind of liquid pour on.. (?) )

[Suspishio]

sorry.. yeah phobia.. I'm just suggesting..

( s it depends on what kind of liquid pour on.. (?) )

Everyone who has spilt red wine on the carpet knows that the antidote is white wine - immediately poured on; otherwise the corrosive effect of red wine leaves its unerasable stain.

'nuff said!

(btw: I've spilt tea on a laptop keyboard some years ago - a Dell as it happens. The symptoms described at the top of this thread are exactly what followed.)

[IanShorrock]

A cruel message, ahihihi!

Anyway, red wine leaking into the power handling circuitry or the HDD compartment - damage done before mobo cleaned up. Could have glitched the power, surged to the disk, bad sector. Or gloop still in the connectors somewhere. Anything.

Something like that and I suspect you feared this. We at such great distance would know less than you about the likelihood.

UPDATE:
My laptop is now booting up regularly and working apart from keyboard and trackpad. But wireless LAN seems to be intermittent,

I have noticed the following.
When the wireless LAN is working, rare but it happens (for example after re-installing the drivers), and then I shut the laptop down normally the laptop will not boot, or post. I have to go through many power on, attempt to boot, forced shutdown cycles, to get the laptop to switch on. When it fires up the wireless LAN will not be working(Windows cannot find any networks). After that the laptop will boot normally almost every time but without the wireless LAN not working. Wired LAN works fine.

I have replaced the keyboard with a new one but it still does not work. I have noticed that the connector is a bit flimsy. Are there any other keyboard connectors to check ?

I think I am getting a bit closer to getting my laptop back to full health so any further non-wine related advice gratefully received.

Ian S

[Mr Synapse]

Hi,

I recently spilled red wine onto the keyboard of my brand new Dell Inspiron 1525. I switched off as quick as I could and left to dry but as you could imagine it didn't apprecaite it and would not turn back on afterwards. I left it for a week and tried again and low and behold it fired into Vista first time.

I sent it off to be looked at and the motherboard was cleaned up. Everything was working apart from the keyboard and trackpad. With a USB keyboard and mouse it was useable. It now however regularly refuses to boot up. It will boot up at about one attempt in 20.
When it fails to boot it does not reach POST. The multimedia touch control lights do their little flicker thing, the hard drive light flickers for a second or two, the DVD drive flickers, and then nothing. There are no bleeps and a just a blank screen. No lights on the USB keyboard. The power light remains on and I have to power down with the on/off switch to try and reboot. Sometimes I have to remove the battery to power down.

When it does boot up it goes straight into Vista as if there isnt a problem. It works perfectly, software and hardware (apart from the keyboard / trackpad), although the WiFi seems to drop out after about 30 mins.

One time I got the message "Manufacturing Mode - Level 67, Press Fn-X" but as the laptop keyboard is dead I cannot use the Function keys so had to re boot again.

Any ideas. I am hoping that because the fault is intermittent that it is not too serious. Here's hoping !

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ian S

It sounds as though the Hard Drive may be an issue. I would suggest taking it out, if you're a technical person, and installing it into another working machine. Whether that machine Boots will confirm the hard drive is an issue. It may just be that the wine issue may have uncovered another one - with the Hard Drive!

I would give that a try.

Cheers,

Mr Synapse

[Tuan88]

I HAVE FOUND A WORK AROUND, WORK 100% with guarante

If testing (press and keep "Fn" and press the power button) of your Inspirion 1525 is ok, do the following

1) press and keep the button "F2", press and release the power button
2) after about 10s, you will see light on the display, release F2

voila (try again if it not work the first time, turn all off before you try)

why F2? because it is for the BIOS setup, I want to check the bios settings, and then I saw this trick by using F2 to "trigger" the display. There must be a bug in Dell POST check since it "thinks" there is something wrong and then it halts the whole check.

GL
Tuan