Dell Netbook Memory and Power

Hello,

I have a nearly two year old Dell Inspiron-mini Netbook, model 1710 (not sure of that). It came with 1GB RAM; I ordered a 2GB replacement unit from Crucial, received the memory and installed it.

From that point on, the little thing would only stay powered up for about 5 minutes, then it would lose power and go off.

So I restored the original memory chip; it did exactly the same thing.

I had been very careful to ensure that I put everything back the way it was when I opened it up; it's not the first time I've worked inside a laptop or a PC; I can't count how many times I've done that.

Back and forth with the memory and still, it dies after 5 minutes or so.

My question is, given I have no real testing equipment to use, how can I tell if the battery simply died at the same time as I did the memory mod? Given that I leave the a/c adapter - battery charger - plugged in when I'm not using it, is it possible that I have over-charged the battery and killed it, or used up the life cycle of the battery?

I've not contacted Dell, as it is out of warranty, and they charge too much even to ask a question, so I thought someone here might be able to advise me on how the figure out if the battery is, indeed, dead.

Thank you all, very much, for any advice you can offer me.

 

I will give you some quotes from the Dell website and forum. I don't come across Dells very often.

If it works correctly without the battery, the battery is probably the cause.

The battery might have LEDs and a button on it:

They suggest doing a BIOS upgrade, but I would not try it unless the system was completely stable. You can go it the BIOS and reset it to defaults (usually by pressing F9, then saving the settings when you exit).

The system shutting down can be indicative of heat problems, so keep this in the back of your mind.

There is no Inspirion mini 1710. Mini's are numbered by their screen size (9, 10 or 11 ", like 910, 1010 or 1110).

Matt

 

Dell Netbook inspiron Mini

[FONT= "Verdana"]
I tried the two suggestions I received today (finally), and no joy! I removed the battery and with A/C plugged in, it stayed up for a bit longer than before - maybe 15 minutes - but then, with no warning, it simply shut off.

Is there anything else I can try? Does anyone know if there is a DELL secret to opening the case of a netbook, to make it not work, unless you do something specific? Sorry, but I'm grasping for the esoteric at this point. this little thing worked so well before and all I wanted to do was boost the memory.

Once again, thank you very much, for any advice you can offer.

-a.[/FONT]

 

As mattman posted it could be heat related, with the battery removed you may have bought yourself more time. Try spraying compressed air into any vents and see if that helps.

 

Would that mean that during my attempts to install new memory, I failed to restore something critical, or do these little things simply get hotter as they get older?
Thanks again,
-a.

 

I doubt that you "failed to restore something critical ", replacing memory even in a laptop is not a complicated process. You may have damaged the memory though, it's susceptible to static damage, so running a thorough memory tester may be advisable.

Dust bunnies are a major enemy and through time you'll gather more of them without adequate cleaning, it could just be coincidence that this happened at the same time you switched memory or you may even have dislodged some dust toward a more crucial area. Either way it wont do any harm to give the system a wee clean.

On a personal note Alex, can I ask you to change your font colour to the more acceptable black? Your posts hurt my eyes.

 

Thanks, Wildfire.

As for the font color ... sure, you can ask

-a.