My daughter's Compaq Presario C300 (C303NR) decided it no longer wants to boot up. Most of the time the fan will come on for a few seconds then it will shut off. Sometimes it will start to boot and get partway through the Windows XP startup, then go blank and shut off.
With the power cord plugged in, the battery charge light (lightning bolt) is on. However, after a partial boot, the charge light goes into a flickering mode until I unplug it, wait a while, then plug it back in.
Sometimes after a failed boot attempt it will give me an error - "0251: System CMOS checksum bad".
When I go into the BIOS settings, the date and time have been reset. The computer won't stay on long enough to let me change any settings.
I've tried reseating the RAM, pulling out the battery, and reseating the hard drive but these haven't helped. I haven't opened up the case beyond the access covers for the RAM and hard drive.
Any ideas?