Laptop repair
 

Hi friends,

My Dell laptop will not stay on. I have tried all home fixes (you tube) but no luck.
Please recommend who or where I should go.
Thanks and have a great 2025.

Jerseyjets

Basically, anywhere but Best Buy. If you can't find an individual who can help, try U Break, I fix. They also sell warranties that cover all of the electronics in your house (computers, cell phones, TVs... I pay $16.99 per month to cover everything and no longer feel a need to purchase an Asurion warranty for high $ items on amazon, because this will cover them.

Jacob's Computers
Address: 102 S Main St, Wildwood, FL 34785
Hours:
Closed ⋅ Opens 9 AM Mon-Friday
Phone: (352) 399-6801

Located across the street of Wildwood Town Hall same side of 301.

Taken laptops and I-Phones to him and never been disappointed.

MMD computers are excellent

How old is it? Is it a touch-screen? Is it a Chromebook? Is it a gaming laptop (aka Alienware)? How old is the operating system? You might have a dead battery, that won't hold a charge anymore. Does it shut down even when you have it plugged in to the wall outlet with your power adapter? Does it make unusual noise when you turn it on? So many possible reasons why it wouldn't stay on, but it all depends on what EXACTLY the situation is with your machine.

When you say it won't stay on, what do you mean by that? Do you power it up, it starts to load the OS, and then shut itself off immediately without ever opening to Windows? Or does it power up, load the OS, stay on for a few minutes, and then shut down? Is it "shutting down" or is it "turning off?"

Have you installed any new software in the past month? It could be that you've run out of memory. Or it could be that you have a virus. Or it's possible that a new download self-installed and is sucking all your RAM on bootup. That's not likely, but it's possible. The most likely culprit is the battery, but other likely possibilities would be a faulty power jack or damaged hard drive.

Staples

Staples doesn't do repairs in house, with very few exceptions. They can swap out a battery but pretty much anything else gets farmed out.

Power supply is good. I even took ram out and put back in. Thanks for advice.

Not sure of the model or age of laptop, but there are Dell known issues with batteries, awake from sleep, and battery charging / monitoring, and will not tell you what you should do, but here is my current Dell experience after owning dell's for 30 years.

I have an 8 year old Dell Precision, and have had plenty of battery issues. The batteries have a questionable life, so after talking to Dell, here was their steps to check the battery

1) Shut off the laptop
2) Take the battery out.
3) Plug in the power supply
4) Turn on the laptop.

If the laptop turns on and boots and windoz or linux comes up, great.
The laptop still works.

5) Shut down
6) Put battery back in, leave shore power plugged in
7) Turn on the laptop
8) After boot up, check the battery level
9) Battery shows 100% charged? maybe it is, maybe it isn't
10) are there any hardware lights, like near the disk activity light, which show an indication of a battery issue? Check your model manual to see if there are any battery indicator lights for a battery issue.

11) I have a flashing orange light near the disk activity light that tells me that the battery and charger are not talking to each other properly, and the battery won't work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't

12) If the hardware lights don't show an issue, then unplug the shore power.
Check the hardware lights for any changes.
13) If the screen goes blank, check your sleep settings on battery. Sometimes, it goes directly to sleep. Dell's have known issues with awake from sleep.
14) From your manual, follow the steps to awake from sleep.
15) if you can't awake from sleep, follow steps to power back on, usually holding the power on button down for 3 seconds or so.

If you can't awake from sleep, or the computer won't boot up and stay on very long on battery only,
and there are no hardware light issues, either the internal charger is weak/dead, or the battery is weak/dead, or both.

My internal charger is iffy, and the battery is old and doesn't hold a charge for very long at times. Other times it does fine, So i run the laptop, which is relatively big and heavy, on battery all the time. When the battery non charging light is flashing, I play around with the booting on or off to get the issue to go away, if i need the battery for a bit.

good luck

former finance and IT guy,
home built several windoz tower models from pahts

Another vote for MMD.

I have been very satisfied with Best Buy.

My Dell was shutting down from time to time. I finally figured out that it was overheating. This would happen when I used it in my lap without a hard surface. I purchased a laptop tray and problem solved. When it overheated, I would have to let it cool all the way to room temperature before it would power up.

In the new Dell models, overheating is a known problem, as told to me by a Dell service person, while golfing up in NE. the race to be the thinnest and the lightest means the battery is closer to you and there is less of a heat sink for everything.

Am debating buying a new Dell for my next laptop. .

Why would you even consider it, when you already know that overheating is a known problem with them? OTOH, their gaming computers have 4 fans in their cooling system. So as long as you aren't planning on gaming and overclocking, you shouldn't ever have overheating problems with Alienware laptops. Of course, you'd have to pay between $1500 and $5000 for an Alienware laptop.

Or you could just - get some other brand that isn't known for overheating problems? My sister loves her Lenovo, I'll probably get either a Lenovo or another HP before the end of this year when Windows10 stops getting security updates.

How old is this laptop? If over 6 years old I would just trash it and get another one. Probably spend 1/2 of what it’s worth to get it fixed anyway?