I tried to start my laptop earlier, only for nothing to happen. It won't start on battery or when plugged in (it can run without a battery when plugged in). The battery does seem to be dead, and so is the 3V CMOS battery.
I opened it up and noticed a circle visable on one of the inductors. Hopefully you can see it in the picture.
Could this be the problem, or is that normal?
Does the power supply turn off, entering short circuit protection, when plugged into the laptop? If so some capacitors on the supply line may be shorted. Usually they are all in parallel so to find which one is shorted go by trial and error: remove each shorted cap test continuity outside the mobo. If it beeps it's dead. You should be able to power the laptop without that cap.
Note that caps under/behind the CPU/GPU appear shorted even if they are working when the laptop is off, do not touch them
That's a great tip, but unfortunately the power supply is not turning off. I will refer to this next time though ๐