Dell Inspiron 1721 - bad board or cpu ?

[Finch127]

Well lads,

Preforming an inspection here for a client on this model, it died the other night on her while she was just sitting on the desktop, she claimed that it was overheating alot on her.

When I try to boot it up, the hard disk spins up for 2 seconds, cpu fan DOESNT, power light is solid, then shuts down followed by a flicker of the battery charging light. I thought maybe it was the fan that was gone and maybe it was shutting down because it detected that the cpu fan wasnt spinning , and it was just that particular fan, but ive tried another 2 in it, same problem.

Also re-seated the cpu, tried different RAM, cleared the cmos, removed the battery to just run on direct power and another power adapter.

Kinda looks like its the board, but one thing, how come the hard disk is spinning up, even for 2 seconds, and the power lights are active again for 2-3 seconds, if it was the board shouldnt the whole thing be as dead as a doornail ?

Cheers

[Commander Wolf]

CPUs really don't die that often... it's most likely the board (the track record of the 1721/1521 would suggest the same too). There's a lot of stuff that can break on the motherboard, so symptoms of board failure can vary; it's not uncommon for a bad board not to be completely dead.