Laptop computer not booting up and restarts forever

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Dell Vostro Series

Line of laptop computers aimed at the small business market, designed to replace the Dimension line of laptop computers.

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Owais Shahid @owaishortus

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Posted: Aug 25, 2018

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Laptop computer not booting up and restarts forever

Hello everyone. I have a laptop computer Dell vostro 14-5480, that I reformated and installed new windows with windows 8.1, updated all drivers, everything worked well for a few days. But one morning, when i opened the laptop, it turned on by itself, and kept restarting again and again. I thought may be battery is dead, but that was ok. It keeps restarting, doesn't boot to windows, and the F2 setup (BIOS) key and F12 boot keys doesn't work too (like when i hit F2 or F12, it goes to the setup for a while but then restarts again and again), no bluescreen error, nothing, but only restarting and restarting forever util i close the lid

I have a little knowledge about hardware, so I unscrewed the case and tried to run it without the RAM stick, but it just keep beeping and doesn't do anything when i turned it on without the RAM. Then I unplugged the HDD, it gave the same problem again. I did the same with the cell, but that didn't help too. I checked the cell voltage, its giving more than 3.1 in open circuit. I checked the HDD on another computer, it works well.

I took it to repair shops, some said HDD is the problem, then i checked the HDD was working well on other computers. Some said the whole mainboard has some issue so need to replace, but how come it has problem if it displays the Dell logo and can recognize the boot options. Then one of the repair man was checking it, he removed the HDD during the startup and again inserted it, it booted to windows, he said the problem is with the keyboard, some key is being pressed again and again. But for the keyboard he was asking a lot of money. Then i left, but thought that if it booted to the window with this method, may be the mainboard is fine and the problem may be with the keyboard or some other part is loosed up.

Now i have opened everything and trying to remove the keyboard to clear the keys, may be it solves the problem. I tried to open the CPU and GPU, but they are glued and I can’t open them without the SMD rework gun.

I have discussed this issue on CNET too, may be that will explain the problem more: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/...

Here is a short video of the problem, you may take a look:

https://youtu.be/GxnMB9y69H8

Please help me with it…. Please :’(

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Can you boot it off a bootable CD/DVD or memory stick? If so, that'd show that a lot of the laptop is working. It could be just random the times when it does boot into windows and of no particular significance. But even so, I don't see why it's resetting and going back to the flash screen.

It looks like it's a few years old. You might be able to get another on eBay relatively cheaply, perhaps with a broken screen or without a hard disk and you could swap motherboards or whatever else in order to get yourself a working laptop.

Aug 26, 2018 by Philip Le Riche

Thanx Philip

I already mentioned that the bootable USB is not working.. Portable HDD also doesn't works, nothing works..

I think your later idea is good, but how can i remove the CPU and GPU from the old mainboard? these are fixed with some type of glue.. I worry about breaking them

Aug 26, 2018 by Owais Shahid

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Owais Shahid @owaishortus

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Posted: Aug 28, 2018

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my sixth sense told me to clean the power button, as that might be shorted or whatever.. I opened everything, and reached the keyboard, it was fixed so i had to pry it out.. I cleaned the power button a bit, though it looked fine.. I glued the keyboard again, and jammed a couple of keys too, but that got alright after taping for a while.. So i installed everything again, and blowing every socket and cleaning the connections.. powered on the computer, and, couldn't believed that it was working finely... so jams, no reboots, nothing..

I don't know what the problem was, but as far as my thinking, there was no problem with the mainboard.. either some key was shorted or some connection was not intact, that was making the problem...

thank you all for answering and giving me valuable suggestions.

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Can you boot it off a bootable CD/DVD or memory stick? If so, that'd show that a lot of the laptop is working. It could be just random the times when it does boot into windows and of no particular significance. But even so, I don't see why it's resetting and going back to the flash screen.

It looks like it's a few years old. You might be able to get another on eBay relatively cheaply, perhaps with a broken screen or without a hard disk and you could swap motherboards or whatever else in order to get yourself a working laptop. — Philip Le Riche
Thanx Philip

I already mentioned that the bootable USB is not working.. Portable HDD also doesn't works, nothing works..

I think your later idea is good, but how can i remove the CPU and GPU from the old mainboard? these are fixed with some type of glue.. I worry about breaking them — Owais Shahid