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My friend's (Dell Inspiron) developed some fault recently. The laptop turns off unexpectedly anytime it is turned on. Sometimes, it won't turn on. I removed the battery (thinking it was a battery fault) and turned it on, while it was connected to its charger. It still refuse to turn on sometimes while other times, it turns on but goes off shortly after. Any time it boots and shows up on the welcome page (he's using windows) the keys begin to type randomly, and then shuts down. He said it's a malware. The laptops fan is working well and it doesn't over heat. I would like to know if there's a way to access the system or to keep it turned on, so as to perform a system scan. Also windows defender doesn't work any more. Any help would be appreciated...

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  • Most Dell computers have a built-in diagnostic utility that can be accessed before the OS boots. If you can get into it run a full diagnostic.
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 2:34
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    It doesn't seem likely that a malware would prevent the system from turning on, you might be facing a hardware issue. Start with taking out the RAM modules and try booting with just one of them, or a new/different one.
    – simlev
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 16:46

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It sounds like a hardware issue, possibly with the keyboard. If you are comfortable doing some light deconstruction (it's usually not too difficult to get to the keyboard and Dell has manuals for teardown on their website; just enter the service tag on the Drivers & Downloads page), try disconnecting the keyboard and see if it will boot up normally then. You will need an external keyboard to use it with the keyboard unplugged.

You might also try removing/replacing the RAM. It will usually be pretty easy to get to the RAM (easier than the keyboard). This doesn't really sound like a RAM issue to me, but computers are weird sometimes and RAM is easy to check if you have more than one module in the machine or have spares around.

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I would like to know if there's a way to access the system or to keep it turned on, so as to perform a system scan.

Take out the hard drive and attach it to a working system via a usb adapter.

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