Since the start of the pandemic, I've been lending out some of my older laptops for kids to use for remote learning. They were old enough that they didn't have built-in cameras, etc., but I never needed that. Now, I guess everyone's using Zoom or the like, so not much demand for my pc's.

Along the way I've been fixing some people's laptops. I got one from a local guy - it was a Dell E6400 that belonged to his ex-wife. There was so much crap on it that he really couldn't use it. It also had a fairly small HD (60 Gb) with under 2 Gb left, so I suggested we upgrade the HD and do a complete new install. So we did and I did and it was lots better.

Then he told me there was a keyboard issue, so I checked, and sure enough there were a couple of "strips" of keys that were dead.

First things first: remove the keyboard and clean the contacts (my old friend Pink Pearl to the rescue). Voila! it worked! Or seemed to. A couple days later, it was acting up again. The choices were:

1) Replace the keyboard, or
2) The socket the keyboard plugged into was fu'ed and this would require de-soldering stuff from the motherboard - sorry, no.

So, I ordered him a new keyboard. If that worked, great. If not, dump it.

While waiting for the keyboard to arrive, I turned it on and ... it didn't come up. Just shut off after a few seconds. Uh oh. Removed the old KB in case that was causing a problem but no joy. Watched the cpu fan - it came up and spun for a few seconds and then shut down. It's dead, dead, dead.

I'm beginning to think it's not worth any more time, but does any one have suggestions as to what I should check before I just give up?