Dell inspiron 1521 won't boot

first thing is first check the charger, the charger port in your laptops bord, Ram if all this didnt work let me know

I don't know how to do that

Does the cord wiggle around in the socket?

No. But I had to buy a new one. When I try to boot it up - the 9 light and the scroll lock light stay lit. But as soon as I hit the power button they go out and nothing happens.

i have the same problem from my laptop
the power when in to the motherboard stay for 1min then auto turn off couldn't boot at all

I have the same problem and i bought my feburary of 2008 and dell says it is the mother board i had problems with it from the first day i got it. I WILL NEVER BUY A DELL AGAIN.

Yeah Dell is becoming pretty much of a done product these days. They used to be so good.

I also have a 1521 dell and no startup and the caps key blinks 45 times then computer shuts down. I have taken out the ram and cleaned and relaced. I only have space for 1 ram chip.. I've heard that there is ram under the keyboard? is that correct?

Ok, decided to disassemble this labptop and find out what was going on. and there is in deed a 2nd ram chip that is located under the keyboard. after many attempts of cleaning and reseating it, finallly got the computer to come up. using both the ram chips. so I answered my own question above as there are 2 1gb ram chips on a inspiron 1521. Hope this helps someone else wth the problem of blinking caps (45 times).

Oh I had no problem booting up the computer leaving that ram out under the keyboard. Must have been real dirty as I used tuner wash to clean it out.