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?
Update: I've tested some suggestion and watched some repair videos, but I found nothing. Goodbye old friend ๐ฅฒ๐ค
Thanks for the help guys
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
Is it because of the very low ESR of the caps that it appears shorted?
No, it's because, in the very specific fault I described, at least one of the caps on the supply line are actually shorted. I don't know how rare it is, I've had it happen on a couple laptops, both Dell now that I think about it
Oh no, I mean the caps under CPU/GPU sorry