Dell Studio 1558 Troubleshooting

The Laptop shows no sign of powering on.

There is no charge in the battery of the laptop. All you need to do is take the cord and plug into the circular port in the right-hand side of the laptop. Make sure the other end of the cord is plugged into a working outlet.

If your laptop is receiving charge, but the power button doesn't light up, you may have a broken power button. If that is the case, you need to replace it.

The laptop has too much static built up in the Power Circuit. Unplug the A/C adapter and remove the Battery. Afterwards hold the power button for 30 seconds. Put the battery back in and try turning the computer back on.

The laptop turns on, but all that is displayed is a ribbon of colors, or the screen is completely black.

There is a ribbon of wires connected to the screen of the computer, and the back of the monitor that could be disconnected. This ribbon produces the display on the screen. If it is disconnected, you could reconnected it. If not, you can also clean the ribbon by removing any dust. You can do this by blowing air onto the ribbon, or taking a cue tip and with a little bit alcohol and gently rubbing the cue tip on the ribbon.

The Graphics Card is the what displays images on your computer. A corrupted graphics card could produce the random ribbons of colors. If there was a short in the graphics card, that could produce the lack of anything on the screen. The first thing you can do is try rebooting the graphics card. If that does not work, you will have to replace the graphics card.

There might have been a short within the motherboard. This is could be caused by many factors, but regardless of how it came to be, the motherboard does not work anymore. If this is the case, the motherboard needs to be replaced. Note that this is a last resort, as motherboards are really expensive.

Videos stop playing or listening to audio stops working.

There could have been a short in the graphics card that makes the display distorted. You can try rebooting the graphics card. If that does not work, you may have to replace the graphics card.

The laptop unexpectedly shuts down or restarts.

It is possible that a website that you had visited, or a flash drive that you have plugged in, contained a virus that got downloaded onto the computer. The first thing to do is run a virus scan. If don't have a virus scan, but using an operation system of windows 7 or higher, you can use a built in virus scan.

The motherboard can overheat due to the fan not working, or in need of cleaning. If cleaning the fan of dust and lint does not work, then you may have to replace the fan.

The laptop is plugged in, but refuses to charge. This could be due to several factors.

The power cord may have a bad connection due to frayed wires. If this is the case, you just need to get a new cord.

The A/C adapter could have gone bad. In that case, you need to get a new adapter.

If the power cable works, but the laptop refuses to charge, it could be a bad charging port. If that is the case, you will need to replace the charging port.