My laptop wont boot up...

[Pogeymanz]

So, it was working earlier today. We took it to someone's house and plugged it in (battery died long ago) and the fans spin and the power light lights up, but then it shuts off.

What the heck could cause this?

[handy]

Possibly power supply unit (PSU).

The real pain with notebooks, is that you can't easily just grab another PSU, graphic or sound card & swap out the original for a known good component.

So it couldn't possibly be the power cable? You never know your luck. It doesn't really sound like it is though.

Have you wiggled the power cable around a bit where it plugs in to the notebook? It is possible that you have a bad power socket in the notebook. Though from what you say, & not being able to see it myself, it sounds like PSU from thousands of miles away. :)

It doesn't have a power brick does it? That could be a cheaper & easier situation to test than if its the type of internal PSU that takes full mains voltage from a power point & then steps it down.