I am back. Last night around midnight my laptop died. It would not boot. It would not boot the bios. It was just done.

My worst nightmare - replace the motherboard. It was money that I did not want to spend.

Luckily, a friend of mine at work spotted a couple of interesting articles. He is actually very good at finding relevant information online.

The first post sounded exactly like what I was experiencing. OK, problem identified but would the cure be worse the illness.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_power&message.id=24885&query.id=707341#M24885

I would need to almost completely disassemble my laptop.

http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins8200/en/sm_en/battch.htm

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I had just received a lucky omen from my friend Kostya. He said that he had a feeling that things would improve. So after disassembling, reseating and reassembling, I pressed the power button and it worked.

All appears to work well. I think that I will need to treat the laptop with tender loving care but it is nice to have. The laptop is part of our very sophisticated in car entertainment system. We are headed to Trenton this weekend.

Mike