Dell XPS 9700 – No Power, No Boot, and a Surprisingly Simple Fix

A Dell XPS 17 9700 (i9-10885H, RTX 2060) came in recently because it just wouldn’t turn on. No power, no boot, nothing at all. The owner thought the motherboard or graphics card had died, which is a pretty common fear when a laptop goes completely dark.

I started with a full check-up—power, motherboard, and everything in between. After a bit of testing, the problem turned out to be much simpler: the RAM was bad. Just one faulty stick of memory was enough to keep this whole machine from starting up.

I swapped in good RAM, hit the power button, and the Dell logo came right up. It’s always satisfying to see a “dead” laptop spring back to life, especially when the fix isn’t as scary as it first seemed.

So if your laptop won’t power on or boot, don’t lose hope—it’s not always a dead motherboard. Sometimes it’s just something small, like memory.