What's the problem with my all on one Dell Inspiron 20 Model 3052?

Question

The power button light is always amber when pressed (not flashing) and the screen will not show anything at all. If I press the lcd button above the volume buttons the screen turns on but only cycles through red blue and green screens. I opened it up and sounds like the hard drive starts up for a second and then nothing. Replaced the Cmos battery, tried the heat gun trick and tried cleaning up all the connections but still nothing. I did notice something on the battery copper connectors I will post a link to the picture. Is this the source of the problem? Do I need a new motherboard?

Link to image: https://ibb.co/B4t3hv1

Answer 1

Hi Adrian -

That sounds super frustrating! It's unlikely to be a problem with the battery if you get the same problem while the PC is plugged in. Have you tried booting it while holding the function keys to boot into BIOS?

Are you using the power adapter that came with the computer (if you're using a different one it could be supplying too little power)

Since the HDD does spin up when you start the computer it seems like it's trying to find the OS and failing (though that would generally give you an error on the screen).

Check all of the cables on the motherboard, carefully unplug them (with the PC unplugged and off), and push them back in. If there are cables specifically for the hard drive try unplugging those and booting with the HDD disconnected. That might also force it into the BIOS.

Let me know if any of that leads to different results and good luck!