Gateway Laptop will not boot

I recently was given a Gateway Laptop, a Solo 9100 from about 1997 or so. It has a 4.5GB HDD, P2, 64MB RAM and a DVDROM drive. It stopped working for the previous owner and a couple trys to fix it have yielded nothing. What it does is this:
If you plug it into the AC, and press power, a short faint click (sounds more electronic than mechanical) can be heard from under the keyboard and then nothing. No signal to the screen, no POST, no BIOS screen, no nothing. The power light, disk drive lights flash for a split second and that is all. The power light stays on. Pressing power again will not turn it off, you have to unplug it to make the power light go off. If the battery is in, it will take a charge (signified by yellow light until it goes green after a while). If you remove the HDD or DVDROM, the lights that correspond to them turn on to signify their absence. If you unplug it and put in the battery after charging, it will turn on with the power button, same as above, faint click, and then nothing. You have to remove the battery to make the light go off again. But the board does not appear to be working properly. Is there any thing I can try (detailed please, I have never opened a laptop) to get it to boot? Or is it really fried, and no better than a boat anchor?
Thanks,
Johnny5

 

Anyone have any tips pr pointers on this laptop issue? I dont have any experience working on laptops. I would love to get this one working for my wife to surf the web. Please let me know if I would be better off getting something else.

 

johnny5,
I'm thinking, failing a motherboard fault that it maybe a power problem. Two possibles come to mind. The power adapter is outputing incorrect voltage, likely to be low. Check the output voltage written (usually) on the power adapter and then check this with a multimeter. The voltage may be a little (a volt or so?) higher out of the adapter than stated because at that point it won't be under load. If all looks OK, then it may be the battery is at fault, as usually the battery is required even if powering off mains power. You could try deep cycling the battery a few times in case of the memory effect. Leave the battery connected with the laptops power on for a few hours or over night etc. Alternately connect an appropriately voltage matched bulb (or similar) to the battery terminals to drain it. Recharge the battery and repeat a few times. Also check for corrosion or tarnished battery and PSU terminals.

Find your local service centre for Gateway PC and they may be able to quickly try another PSU and/or battery for you?