Dell Inspiron 5100

Thanks for taking the time to try and help me out. Here's my issue. I was given a laptop this weekend that had an unknown pre-existing problem, I figured that it would be a great project since I'm currently studying for my A+ exam. The laptop is a Dell InSpiron 5100. The problem that I am experiencing is that the laptop will not power on and thus not booting. When I insert the AC power adaptor the power and battery leds, located on the palm rest, flash simutaniously just once. None of them stay continuously lit. When I try to power up the system, the power and cpu leds flash simutaniously once followed by the power and battery leds flashing once simutaniously. Again none of them remain lit and the laptop does not power up. I have gone through quite a few troubleshooting techniques already such as: - Striping the laptop down to the bare essentials and attempting boot, the fan spins for about a second and then stops - Reseating Memory - Powering up with only one memory slot populated, then doing the same with the second memory slot - Removing the DVD-CD rom and then powering up - Removing HD and powering up - Removing the battery and powering up using only the AC adaptor After all of these troubleshooting attempts, nothing has changed. I'm pretty sure it's the mobo but I'd really appreciate some insight.

That is typical of faulty power, whether it be from a bad power pack, or worse from a weak spot where the jack is soldered to the motherboard, you need to try another power pack to see, make sure it's the correct power rating for the system, if it fires up with this then it's a power pack, if it does the same it's almost certainly the jack point weak\broken or similar, this doesn't mean it can't be some other freak issue, but this is a common fault with laptops, so is a good place to start looking.