I'd like to hear opinions on what the possible options are for diagnosing this problem please:

I have a Gateway laptop that I recently purchased from eBay.

The laptop was fine, but one hot day it locked up and I dropped the battery out of it to to turn it off. (ya, I didn't know any better) When I tried to restart, I got no screen, one set of lights on "on" button push, no beeps (I think), I can hear fan. While the computer is sitting "off", the battery dies.

I took it to Fry's and had it diagnosed and "fixed". They said that they just had to "re-seat" the RAM. The also ran a diagnostic test on the laptop (using PC-Doctor) and it passed with flying colors. When I picked the laptop up, it worked.

I brought the laptop home and booted it up, installed my wireless network card and plugged the battery back in as well. The battery does not recharge, but all else is working fine and then my son pulls out the power plug (ie wall adapter and only power supply to the computer). When I attempt to turn the computer back on, I get the whole shebang all over again! The computer won't startup - I can hear the fan, see a light when push the button, but nothing else.

I tried to take out the harddrive and the RAM that I could get to via screw driver and re-plug them back in. Still nothing. I tried switching the RAM and I also took off the wireless card and took out the battery, but still nothing.

So, now I'm sitting $120 poorer and the same problem with a non-working laptop.

Can anyone offer any suggestions or ideas? Or at least help me figure out what to say to the Fry's guys when I take my notebook back in there and cry about it.

I'd certainly appreciate ANY help at all.

Thanks so much,
"Sugaar".