Just have to keep trying ideas:

Did you remove the Main Battery while you removed the CMOS battery?

If not then try that.

Also do you know the make & model of the motherboard?

I did remove the main battery while I removed the CMOS battery. I never use the main battery though - I just run the computer from my AC adapter.

I wish I knew the make and model of the motherboard. Not even my computer dealer knows that. Apparently they're subcontracted at a number of different places in Asia. He says it's anyone's guess.

The computer won't even start now! I think my motherboard is fried. It's a fairly new CPU, so I'm convinced that it's the motherboard that's the problem. All I get is the green power light now appearing for three or four seconds and then it goes off and then nothing, no power, nothing.

While you have been moving things about are you sure that the RAM & CPU are still securely seated?

All connections sure? The battery right side up? (should that make a difference)

Everything's in place. I didn't touch the CPU or the RAM. I never moved the CMOS battery. It's glued in place. I just undid it's connection and then reconnected it. As far as the main battery I never use it except for the present requirement today in the attempted flash update. When I travel with my computer, it is very delicate to vibration and sometimes it does not work for a time. If I try and start it up tomorrow there's a chance it may start. It's finicky that way. I moved it around a lot when I was working on it and I think it's somewhat upset at me. Perhaps it will cool off by tomorrow. I'm poised to buy another motherboard though, and I'm glad their cheap. The one I have now has lasted for close to two years, which in my understanding is a fairly good life for a system board.

Well I hope things settle out. I have never worked on laptops so my experience is with desktop & tower motherboards.

Although I am curious about: " I never moved the CMOS battery. It's glued in place. I just undid it's connection and then reconnected it."

On any board that I have ever seen these are easily replaceable. The only connection is the battery in the slot. The disk in the ring holder. etc.

Anyway: hope it's better in the morning

In the Dell 1282C motherboard the CMOS battery is composed of six watch type batteries in a horizontal line inside a green rubber form-fit casing. The whole thing is glued to a strip of foam which is glued to the top of the left side framework of the palmrest support inside the computer. It has a couple long wires leading out of it that attach to a very small two-pin connector, and yes, it can be removed quite easily, although it is glued in place on my system board and on my board there is no battery in the slot. The battery is simply sitting rather conspicuously on top of this inner palmrest framework. You can check it out in Google images. Just put in Dell 1282C and a picture of the whole board should come up. Below is a link to the picture I found:

http://www.laptops-we-r.com/images/L...RD%201282C.gif

I almost ordered a new motherboard until I found out that my system's booting up again this evening. However, it still has the same problems. I tried the flash BIOS update again, but I think my laptop battery, which is extremely low on its charge, is possibly causing my system board to short circuit and stop working for a time, because when I put the battery in I get a flickering orange light. Also, when I try to do the flash BIOS update, I get a message that says that if I'm running Windows 98 (which I am not, I'm running XP) to be sure and activate the run_me.reg utility on the update diskette, but I can't run this utility because I have to get to my desktop to run it. Whenever I try to update it either says one of two things - to "please install the battery", or "update canceled by user". If I press enter after either of these two messages, it takes me to the A:// prompt. Could I possibly run the run_me.reg utility from there? I thought I'd try this - even though I'm not running Windows 98, it's still worth a try.

Don't know what to add at this point. Did you read this:

http://support.dell.com/support/down...3&fileid=40542

Also I haven't created the BIOS floppy but what I wonder is if you view it on another computer is there a README.txt ?

This BIOS existed before XP ... 95/98 or 2000 were the options ...

Notes:
1. For systems using Windows 98 version 4.10.1998, the RUN_ME.REG
utility available on this diskette should be installed before
upgrading to this BIOS. Installing this utility will prevent
Windows 98 version 4.10.1998 from converting to ACPI mode when
hardware detection is performed. See README.TXT, included on
this diskette, for more details.
*** Please Note ***
This utility has been updated. All Windows 98 version 4.10.1998
users are encouraged to install this utility, even if they have
previously installed an earlier version.

Thank you for all of your support Jephree:

I'm going to your Dell link now and by the way the README.TXT does show up on my computer. I'm going into the forums on the Dell website as well as howtofixcomputers.com for what to do from here. I'm going to email Dell to see if they can tell me the manufacturer of my system board and if they know the location of the CMOS jumpers if there are any so I can reset the BIOS from there. Here is a neat link I found on how to reset the BIOS password. It's got extensive information and I'm using it to work on my problem:

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/bios_password.htm

This website says to disconnect the CMOS battery for a half an hour. My computer dealer says to disconnect it for two days. Maybe the BIOS takes a long time to lose the information, so maybe I should leave it unplugged for a couple of days -