Power switch fail to stay on

Hi @stevetodd

Try a full power refresh and check if that resolves the problem.

a). Disconnect the charger from the laptop (if connected) and then remove the main battery from the laptop.

b). Open the laptop and disconnect the RTC coin cell battery¹ from the motherboard.

Here's the maintenance and service guide for the laptop. Go to p.36 and p.44 to view the procedure to remove/replace the main battery and the RTC coin cell battery, respectively.

c). Press and hold the laptop's Power button for a full 30 seconds and then release it.

d). Reconnect the RTC battery, reassemble the laptop, reinsert the main battery and connect the charger.

e). Check if it turns on OK.

If it does then there may be a message stating that the time and date are incorrect. This is normal as the BIOS has been reset back to its factory default state by the above procedure. Once the date and time have been corrected, the message won't appear the next time the laptop is started. Also any user definable BIOS settings that were changed by you to suit whatever operating requirements you needed, will have to be change back again.

¹ When the RTC coin cell battery is disconnected/removed from the laptop, measure its voltage. If it is <2.5V DC replace it. Search online for 537616-001 to find suppliers that suit you best. If you don't have a DMM (digital multimeter) to measure the battery voltage then if the battery is >5 years old, replace it anyway. This battery is used to maintain the BIOS settings once the laptop has been turned off and what happens is that when its voltage gets low the BIOS can become corrupted, preventing the laptop from operating normally.