laptop switching off immediately

Hi, I have a second hand Dell Latitude D620 laptop, running windows xp, which I use for browsing the internet now and again. It is a while since I last used it and when I switched it on this morning, it immediately switched itself back off again. I checked all the connections, everything was fine there. I don't get time to get into the bios to check anything as the screen doesn't even come up before it switches off. It is literally on and straight back off. Can anyone help, please? Sorry there is so little information. Thanks for reading and in advance for any help offered. hedley

With such a situation it is near impossible to find an exact issue, because you can't access the system long enough to check anything, and physical access, with the likelihood of having spares to swap in make it even worse, so we are hard pushed to do many things usually suggested, but that said with luck there are a coup[le of things to try and see if they get a response. There are 2 instant thoughts come to mind, heat, maybe the CPU needs the heatsink reseating, or ram, maybe a stick(s) has gone bad, ram be be the fastest one to check, assuming access is not restricted, and there is more than 1 stick, then you can try variations in a stick at a time in the first slot, and repeat in the alternate slot(s), if it suddenly fires up then you have a probable cause, but it doesn't rule out other possible problems that may not be apparent yet (speaking worst case that is), but if it can fire up you can run scans to check for any other possible issues. The heatsink is not always easy to do, space and clear access can be a problem in such devices, if you have any cold locations, you can try and fire it up in there, if it seems to get somewhere before it stops it suggests heat may be an issue, so if it gets nice and cold in the night try then, if you have fans see if they can help, try and raise the bottom so there is better access for air, maybe remove bottom panels and get air moving round there, again if it gets that bit further than what is has previously, then again it suggests it may be a factor, but given the involvement in trying to do these things check the ram first, see if this helps, and if there are any system beeps take note of them as they may help.

only time i've ever known such a thing as "instant" off, was when the battery was no good, and either the power supply used was not making a good contact with the laptops socket so wasn't powering it or was also dead. heat or any other similar problem usually doesn't have the "instant" off you seem to be having in my experience and usually takes a while before the cpu safety cutoff takes effect and powers off the laptop, that's not to say it couldn't be your problem, but i'd definitely be thinking it's a power issue before anything else. when the power lead is plugged in do you see the recharge light on? if not then this would confirm it's not getting power and why it turns instantly off.

Hi 8210GUY, terry1966, thanks for the replies. Terry, unfortunately, it's not the power supply. Even though the laptop won't turn on when using the power supply, the battery is being charged all the while and the lights are showing. 8210guy, did as you suggested. I reseated what could be reseated, also had a look at everything else while I was there. Everything looks to be where it should be, but the problem still remains. Thanks for the help. hedley

sorry then because i can't think of what else it could be besides a power problem, might be worth trying to turn it on with the battery removed and just using the power supply but apart from that the only thing i can suggest it to take it to a shop so they can run some physical tests to find out what the problem may be.

My reference for re-seating was aimed at the heatsink on the CPU, and replacing the thermal material with fresh (cleaning off the old first), but yes the ram needed to be tested on each ones own (assuming more than 1 stick), and in all slots (assuming there is more than 1 slot), but as a thought, try removing ALL ram, then try to power on, obviously it won't, but I wonder if it will force any beeps in reporting an error, but obviously this needs the laptop to power on for a few seconds, if you not even getting that, then something is very wrong, then unless you have comparable parts to start swapping around, I have to agree with terry1966, you will need to take it in for repair, as most people won't have the spares required for doing this, more so in a laptop, But to add onto terry1966's suggestion, have you tried removing the battery, then see if it will boot up via mains only, assuming it can be done this way, I have seen some that must put the mains through the battery, and a final addition to terry1966's suggestion, see if you have another charger, or see if a freind has one, you must make sure it is the same power in volts AND amp's as yours or it could make things even worse, although you say the light is on as in charging, but it is possible to have a power failure, but still have enough trickle power to put on a light, but not enough power to turn on, can't hurt to try if you can find a comparable charger, hope you get a result one way or the other.

Hi 8210guy, terry, Not to let it beat him, my husband took another look at the laptop today. Turns out, it was one of the memory modules causing the problem. Don't know why checking it yesterday didn't work, but as soon as he took out the inner module today the laptop started up. As it is running xp, I'll have to run MS's tool to find out if it will run win7, now that xp is on it's last lap, so to speak. Anyway, glad to get it running again. Thank you both very much for your help, much appreciated, as always. hedley.

thanks for the update, glad 8210GUY's suggestion of testing each memory stick on its own sorted it out for you.

Yep ram can be fussy stuff lol, it doesn't take much to upset it at times, but what is confusing is I would have expected system error beeps as it was ram, so who knows why it didn't beep during this, but at least you have found the issue now, and recovering to full power is simple, but I always use Crucial's scanner to see what ram I have, and what it can take, and prices are very good from what I have dealt with, and they guarantee it to work in the system, but if the system can handle 4gig, you can go for a 64bit version of the os, it will give you the best performance it can, but that said, if it's an xp system, it may be to dated to handle an updated os, at least in some areas anyway, and don't forget to check any other stuff you may connect, eg phone, camera etc, hopefully it will work, but often you wont know for sure just how it will fare until you do the upgrade, glad your sorted, and hope you get some luck upgrading.