[cephlon]

I took the entire laptop apart after talking with Dell support on the phone for an hour and no solution was found. I guess they are not allowed to walk a customer through opening the entire laptop.

So I have everything apart and I have discovered that wall I have to do is put the slightest pressure on the motherboard and the computer resets/shuts down. So this appears to not be an issue with the screen but with the motherboard. It seems like a short somewhere, but I have no clue where to look.

Does anyone know of a place where a short in the motherboard would cause this situation?
What can I possible do short of replace the entire motherboard to fix this issue.

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Dell won't support taking the laptop apart yourself because that would invalidiate any warranties they offer.

Assuming laptop boards work in the same kind of way as desktop motherboards, then pressing the board back causes the metal casing to come into contact with the board, thus creating a short circuit and the thing restarts itself. You may well be missing one of the standoffs underneath the board.

[Neil Jones]

Dell won't support taking the laptop apart yourself because that would invalidiate any warranties they offer.

Assuming laptop boards work in the same kind of way as desktop motherboards, then pressing the board back causes the metal casing to come into contact with the board, thus creating a short circuit and the thing restarts itself. You may well be missing one of the standoffs underneath the board.

[cephlon]

Hey, thanks for the reply.
I did end up figuring it out and I wrote up my discovery in my blog in case any other Dell Laptop Owners can find it useful.

http://www.eltonwils...en-case-is.html